Indonesia.

Your telegram 286 and our 350 of 11th March. [1]

Minister today again saw acting chief Division of Southeast Asian
Affairs and also Morgan acting chief of Division of North European
Affairs.

They said that they had today had a telegram from U.S. Embassy at
The Hague reporting that Van Vredenburch Political Director of
Netherlands Foreign Office had expressed himself optimistically as
to early finalisation of agreement. This was the first time they
had had any such optimism from the Dutch side. They concluded that
this meant the Netherlands Government were now prepared to make
some recession which was likely to be acceptable to the Indonesian
authorities.

Having regard to this information plus the report (our telegram
350) that the Indonesian National Committee had authorised final
signature of the Cheribon agreement they felt that U.S. should
mark time for say next ten days in the hope that agreement would
be reached by then.

They promised to keep us advised of any developments which would
necessitate their taking action.