INDONESIA

Situation in Indonesia will be discussed by the Assembly early
next week. It is desired that you follow up the remarks made by
the Prime Minister at the recent conference [1] and discuss with
United Kingdom authorities attitude which might be adopted at the
forthcoming Assembly meeting.

The present position will be known to the Foreign Office. The
current negotiations are still completely informal and non-
committal and certain proposals were put forward to the Dutch by
Cochran which he believed went as far as was possible to expect
the Republican delegation to go. He received the Netherlands
response during the last few days which was almost a complete
rejection and was considerably upset at the Dutch attitude.

However, a revised proposal is now being discussed and the
reaction of both parties should be known by early next week. (See
my telegram [2] No. 224 New York No. 1913 to London.)
The matter is on the agenda for the Assembly and has not yet been
discussed up to date in order that the current negotiations at
Batavia would be given every chance of success. We believe that by
the time discussion commences it may no longer be said that
Assembly discussion will prejudice these negotiations and we hope,
therefore, that the United Kingdom Government and the United
States Government acting together will use whatever political or
other means might be available to them to bring the Dutch to adopt
a realistic attitude so that the matter might be settled prior to
the adjournment of this present Assembly.

At the Prime Ministers' conference our view on the effect of this
situation on South East Asia generally was clearly stated and we
regard it as most important from the point of view of the interest
of Commonwealth countries in this area that a definite basis of
settlement should be established at this current Assembly meeting.

We should be glad to have any comments which the United Kingdom
authorities might wish to make. Our representatives at New York
will be in close touch with representatives of other members of
the Commission.