471 Department of External Affairs to Australian Delegation, United Nations
Cablegram 747 CANBERRA, 16 December 1947, 1 p.m.
MOST IMMEDIATE SECRET
Please make the following statement at the Security Council meeting when Indonesia is discussed and after it is agreed that Australia continues . . . as member of Committee [1]:
Begins:
I am instructed to raise with the Security Council the work of the Committee of Good Offices, particularly in respect of the requests made to it in relation to the observance of the 'cease fire' order.
2. The present position is that the 'cease fire' order has not yet been observed and that there are no agreed plans by which it can be observed. Our understanding is, however, that the Committee of Good Offices has put forward to both parties a plan [2] which, in their unanimous view, is practicable and reasonable. This was put forward early in December and immediately accepted by one party [3], but has not as yet been accepted by the second party [4] and therefore has not been implemented.
3. The details of this plan have not, of course, been communicated to the three member Governments of the Committee of Good Offices [5], though they have been communicated to the two parties to the dispute. In view of the apparent failure to reach agreement by the two parties, and the delay in responding to the proposals of the Committee of Good Offices, the Australian Government wishes to suggest that the Security Council should immediately and by telegraph ask for full details of the plan, so that the Security Council itself, if it considers the plan practicable and reasonable, can ask that it be immediately implemented.
Ends.
4. See my immediately following telegram. [6]