319 [Quinn] [1] to Hood
Minute PARIS, 18 November 1948
I saw Palar and Soedjatmoko this afternoon as arranged.
The purpose of their request to see you was to discuss the tactics to be followed in drawing the attention of the United Nations to the Indonesian problem. While they believed that pressure on the Dutch has so far been effective, they still did not exclude the possibility of a strong Dutch action being taken in desperation.
However, they still felt disinclined to request a special meeting of the Security Council to consider Indonesia, and in any case had no instructions from their Government for this.
They suggested that there were two possible courses of action:
(a) Utilisation of the opportunity afforded by the presentation of the Fourth Interim Report [2] to the Security Council for a member of the Council (Australia or India) to seek assurances from the United Nations that the work of the Good Offices Commission would be allowed to continue.
(b) A discussion of the explosive situation in Indonesia in Committee 1 or in the ad hoc Committee considering the progress of business in the Security Council.
Palar also raised the question of what should be done if police action were undertaken by the Dutch, and suggested that the President and the Secretary-General of the United Nations might be able to intervene as they had done in the Berlin matter, despite the fact that the Security Council was seized with the Berlin problem. [3] The action taken on Berlin, he thought, might serve as a precedent for direct intervention in the case of Indonesia.
I told Palar that I would convey his observations to you and that we would give the matter very careful consideration. I also told him that we felt that it was desirable to check any military action before it started.