INDONESIA

Your telegram No. 99. [1]

I am in agreement with most of it, but it does not seem
sufficiently explicit and definite to afford definite guidance on
information before me. The position seems to me to be as follows:-

1. The Dutch have clearly failed to carry out the Security
Council's decision. [2] This is in accordance with your paragraph
4 and the Commission will no doubt report this with appropriate
comment. Your own comment is that there has been 'an inexcusable
delay'.

2. Then comes your paragraph 7 indicating the necessity of
reconstituting the Government of the Republic of Indonesia as a
condition precedent to its representative at the Conference having
any authority whatever. This point seems sound and unanswerable.

3. If and when Conference between the parties is held it should be
completely within the framework of the United Nations and under
the jurisdiction of the Commission of the Security Council, not of
the Dutch.

4. Cochran himself does not act for the Commission. I feel that
Cochran's visit to The Hague was ill-timed and has tended to cause
what you call 'inexcusable delay'.

5. If a conference is to be held, its framework, organisation and
control are more important than its location. There are solid
disadvantages to Batavia, but these apply also to The Hague. The
obvious place for the conference seems to be either Lake Success
or Geneva, preferably the former.

6. I agree with you that, while what I have said above should be
the view taken, some care will have to be exercised by the
Australian Representative in New York. We must stand for solid
acceptance of the United Nations' decisions not only by its
members but by its own organs. Moreover, weakness and vacillation
at this stage may be dangerous to the United Nations authority and
prestige.

7. Meanwhile I know some of the Leaders of the Republic have not
even as yet been released. There is much to indicate a deliberate
policy by the Dutch of playing for time.

8. I sincerely hope that Critchley's assessment of the situation
will be accepted.

9. Prime Minister Nehru and Bajpai both take the view indicated
herein which stands for United Nations' decisions and is not
animated by hostility to the Dutch.

10. Bajpai told me today that the Dutch Ambassador [3] had
represented to him that Security Council intervention should be
avoided because of the possibility of a Russian veto. This is
rather absurd, but if the Dutch are putting this up to countries
like India, then it is a warning to the Security Council and the
United Nations.