PRESS CONFERENCE GIVEN BY THE PRIME M4INISTER,_
SIR ROBERT MENZI3S , JN LONDON, ON 1 9T JUE, 165
PRIMEIMINISTER In vieiw. of what has appeared in the Press here,
I tought I ought to say something about the suggestion by
rumah about the withdrawal of the Australian Forces. I think
Iought to say right away that I do not propose to quote what
o her people say in the Conference. I think this is not right.
I$ fact there is a general rule, which is sometimes broken, to
t at effect. But where a statement is made which affects my
p sition what I have said or what I have done, then I regard
myself a-liberty to say something, and on this occasion what
D Nkrumah put forward was given publicity by his delegation
p~ resumably, and it is very important therefore to note what it
w s that he put forward.
He said he thought that Australia and New Zealand
could make a magnanimous gesture by withdrawing, in the case of
A Iustralia, the troops already in South Vietnam, and delaying the
djespatch, in the case of New Zealand, of the artillery unit that
tlhey are proposing to send. He also said that an appeal should
emade to the United States to terminate bombing in North Vietnam.
Now you will not fail to notice that these are all
ropoalsfor the weakening of the Military position of what I
ill call " our side". There was no suggestion that any appeal be
9ade to North Vietnam to refrain from reinforcing or supplying, and
~ o appeal to the Viet Cong to cease fire, nothing of that kind.
his was purely a one-sided proposal and as such I dealt wiith it,
What I said in substance and almost in terms, I
Shink, was that these two proposals were calculated to weaken the
osition of South Vietnam and the forces defending South Vietnam and
orrespondingly to strengthen the position of the enemy, without
lny concession being made by the enemy at all, and such a proposiion,
Ias not prepared to accept for one minute, and I therefore
ejected it and quite rightly,
I would just like to make it clear, if it needs to
made clear, that if this mission succeeds in establishing some
asis for negotiation some basis for a conference, and manages
to secure as part of that a general cease-fire on the part of all
. lements, that of course would be a very different matter, and one
jrhich naturally we as one of the sponsors of this mission would
trelcome. I There is one other aspect of this conference which
I think I should mention, and it's this. As I think I pointed out
g ast year when I got back to Australia, there is a new vocabulary
r rsing in these meetings. People use words in different senses.
Pwwe are, of course, treated and defined by others as being
jcommitted while they themselves say they are uncommitted, This is
a subtlety which needs a little study.
WJhat is meant, I gather, after two days, is that you
are committed if you either publicly support the action of the
United States or publicly participate in the defence of South
Vietnam, but you are uncommitted if you confine your support of
China or Hanoi to urords, This is a distinction of immense
subtlety. It has to be borne in mind because, really, to be
accused of being committed, which in my ease is an honourable
crime, by someone who is equally committed on the other side, seems
to me a little odd, Now I wanted to say that because there is a
lot of distortion going on in some of the columns here in London.
e a e 9 / 2
I / 3
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PRI E MINISTER What I now say will be increasingly true in
( C ntd.) future years as the numbers of those present
gro r. This year we have twenty-one Prime Ministers. ge have, I
6up] kose fifteen topics that will need to be discussed and if
eve sybody wants to make a speech on each, that will be three
hun red speeches and of course that horse won't gallop. In the
old days, everybody could speak on everything but it can't be done
tod y. For example, yesterday we were surveying
pol tical problems of the world and we were dealing in particular
wit the general survey of Africa. Well it is the African Prime
Min sters who speak and by the time that they've spoken,( I am not
say ng they spoke at any undue length; it was very informative
and interesting) but by the time they have finished, time's up,
you might say, and this is going to happen more and more. So
tha more and more there will be views expressed that will not be
ar ued out in the conference. Nobody other than an African
spoke on the African problem. None of the rest of us spoke, nor
I suppose ever will, until we come to the communique to see what
goes in. This is no complaint. It is inevitable. This is a
phenomenon we will all have to take notice of in the Prime
Miristers meetings. I am sure we will have to devise some ways
anc means of restricting either the length of statements or the
re etition of arguments already put which will enable both sides
to be stated where there are two sides to the question. It is
go ng to be a bigger problem as time goes on.
There is another matter connected with the
Au traliaiposition on these discussions. Nothing has been said so
fa: to detract from the position of Malaysia, and I am hoping we
sh l1 come out of this conference with another declaration in
support of Malaysia like the one we had last time, and so far I
halren't heard anything that would suggest that we cannot. But one
vi w we take very strongly is that you cannot treat Vietnam in
is lation because manifestly if the Communists overran South Vietnam
an the whole position was lost there would be imminent danger to
La s to Thailand, and I would think certainly to Malaysia, which
is already of course occupied on one front. Therefore we have
tr. ated the problems of South-East Asia as a whole, saying you
ca mot break them up into fragments, and what would normally be
ot resoluteness of mind about South Vietnam is strengthened because
to us South Vietnam is part of a pattern and it is in relation to
the whole area that we see the overall threat and the overall need
fo resistance. One further point I would like to make about
t e mission is this. I did not expect Mr. Senanayake would be able
to, join it because the very reason which prevented him from
co~ ming to this conference would obviously prevent him from going on
almission of this kind which might take some time. His Budget
cdmes in a month earlier than ours and as you know, he has a
d~ tficult series of problems, financially and economically, in his
oihn country. Certainly his absence or unwillingness to join this
m: ssion is not to be treated as a criticism of the setting-up of
Smission and on the contrary, Ceylon made it quite clear that it
voured this view, this action, as indeed most of us did.
We do not take vote รต but clearly there was a
s bstantial consensus of support for the Wilson proposal.
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QUE. STION : Can you clarify for us the New Zealand angle?
P. M. : No, I can't. The Prime Minister of New Zealand is
here. He is of age. He can speak for himself,
Q* I would have regarded Australia as one of the
Governments principally concerned in South Vietnam.
I just wondered what action the mission was going to take
to sound out your own views on the basis for a negotiation.
P. M. dell, we haven't been treated as a party principal
and I must say that the mission proposes to approach the
United States and I would anticipate it would visit Moscow,
Peking Hanoi, Saigon, Washington, and it will maintain
contacl in one way or another with the Secretary-General
of the United Nations, but it had not occurred to me that
it needed to come to Canberra to ask me what my views were.
Q. Could you give us the basic principles on which a
settlement could be reached, You mentioned a cease-fire,
but could you take it from there?
P. M. We, ourselves have always believed that if there is
to be a cease-fire It must be all round and reciprocal.
In other words, if there is to be a cease-fire on the
part of the South Vietnamese and the Americans and the
Australians, whoever is there, then there must equally be
a cease-fire on the side of the Viet Cong, however one can
get at them or identify them. A cessation of reinforcement
or maintenance of any kind from North Vietnam, a cessation
of aggressive conduct on the part of North Vietnam in
other words, a full respect for the territorial integrity
and political independence of South Vietnam and that
nothing should be left which would involve South Vietnam
after an armistice in being left to the mercy of the
Communist groups in the Viet Cong. In the long run, what
we want is an independent South Vietnam, living in peace,
able to conduct relations in an atmosphere of peace, able
therefore to establish a democratically-elected government
with some probability of stability and with some assurances,
however they may be obtained or guaranteed, that she be
left alone to live her own life.
Q4 Do you see any possibility of the removal of the
division between North and South Vietnam?
P. M. I would not have thought so in my time not that I
am blaming myself for it, but I am stating it as a
chronological proposition.
Q. Inaudible,
P. M1 Don't get this out of proportion. Australia is not
Iliuknede r criticism. What Ghana did was to say " I would
to make a suggestion." He said, " I make this
humbly and I suggest to my friends that they might help."
I don't call that an attack. I had to reject the
suggestion, that is all.
Q. In your opening presentation, you used the x.. ord
that the two proposals made by Ghana were " calculated"
to weaken the position in South Vietnam. Do you use
the word " calculate" in its strict sense? a0 00/
PrM. No, I dont meau_' Udesigned-Oh no. I am
prepared to assume this would have the effect of
I am glad you raised that point. I am not challenging
the bona fides of the suggestion by Nkruniah. All I
challenged instantly was the effect that it would have,
QO Has Australia ever had in a conference like this
a direct request like this to do something externally?
P. M. No, not in my time, but perhaps this is the only
time when the circumstances might give rise to it, because
we do have forces there,
Q. Do you hold out at this time much hope for the
success of the mission, in view of the differences of
opinion we have had so far.
P. M. I don't know that I will want to say very much on
that. I think it has some hope of success, but for us to
speculate about it and sort of begin to lay the odds, I
think might have no good result. I think it is a very good
thing to have this mission) that this is a very well worthwhile
exercise. Those who might think this might operate
to the disadvantage of China can think so only on the
footing that they believe that China will not call it
off. That will be for China to decide or for Hanoi to
decide.
Q. How much do you feel that Mr. Wilson's suggestion
might help him with his own political troubles in Britain?
P. M. I wouldn't make any such suggestion. I think that
is a good cynical view, but it is not mine. Mr, Wilson
discussed this notion of his with me at great length before
be produced it. I happened to be the senior Prime Minister
and I happened to be in a place where he was and therefore
there was a chance to talk and he took me into his
confidence in this matter and we discussed it and tossed
it around and I think from everybody's point of view it
is a jolly good proposal and well worth pursuing.
QO When did he make you aware of this proposal first?
P. M. I think it was the night before. This was a highly
secret proposal. Yes, I heard about it within twenty-four
hours of the announcement.
Q. As far as you are aware, had he made any proposal
of this kind to President Johnson while you were there
last week in this respect?
P. M. I don't think so.
Q0 If the mission succeeded in obtaining a real ceasefire
these are circumstances in which you might then
consider the withdrawal of the Australian troops?
Q. dtell, we would then consider the position as the
Americans would. We would not be likely to withdraw while
they remained because we're there with them and for a
common purpose.
Q. Have you had any discussions with President Nkrumah
outside the conference? e see & 1
P. M.
Q. P. M.
Q. P. M.
Q. P. M.
Q. P. M. No. We haven't had much chance to have any private
discussions with anybody since it began. I am going to
Chequers tonight. There are bound to be one or two Prime
Ministers there and Dorneywood tomorrow night, and I
suppose there will be more there.
Do you think there's a possibility that the Commonwealth
will become so cumbersome that it will cease to
make any worthwhile contribution in the future?
I'd sooner not answer that. I'm a little what's
this modern word? I'm a little unclear in my mind.
There is no question, as far as you know, of Ghana's
membership in the mission being dependent upon Australiars
withdrawal...... Oh dear no. No suggestion of it. I'm afraid one or
two of you may still be under the impression that this was
a sort of demand. It was put up as a suggestion. This
was done when we resumed yesterday. He even said that
he made it with due humility, and it was never at any time
associated with Ghana's membership of the mission.
He didn't raise it on the first day?
No. This was the first and only time this proposal
was made. In other words, this came as a kind of second thought?
I don't know whether it was a second thought or a
third thought. All I can say is the simple fact that he
mentioned it when we resumed our conference yesterday
morning. At the conclusion of the conference the
Minister for External Affairs Mr. Hasluck, said " Might
I make one point on this question of why should the mission
not visit Australia? The thought in Mr. Wilsohts mind,
you will recall at the outset, was the Mission would go
to those powers who have it within their competence to
stop hostilities if they wish to do so." For the same
reason I think it unlikely that they'll need to visit
London.