DEPARTMENT OF STATE Memorandum of Conversation
DATE: September 10, 1952
SUBJECT: Visit of Dr. Luns, new Netherlands Minister Without Portfolio for Foreign Affairs
PARTICIPANTS: Dr. J. M. A. H. Luns, Netherlands Minister Without Portfolio for Foreign Affairs Dr. J. H. Van Roijen, Netherlands Ambassador
The Secretary EUR - Mr. Perkins WE - Mr. McClelland
COPIES TO: S Amembassy, The Hague EUR FE UNA RA
After the introductions and a kind expression by Dr. Luns of the pleasure he had in being able to call upon me, I remarked that we were somewhat intrigued by the new arrangements in the Netherlands Foreign Office. Dr. Luns responded laughingly that he was just as much intrigued himself. Frankly, it was a "political concoction", he said, toward which he was keeping an open mind; and it would probably take a year or so to see how it worked out in practice.
I asked about Dirk Stikker, and Dr. Luns, after tendering the latter's greetings, confirmed that Mr. Stikker would be going to London as their next Ambassador. Dr. Van Roijen told me that whereas Mr. Stikker still suffered from his old ailment his health was certainly no worse.
On the new organization of the Foreign Ministry, Dr. Luns explained that Mr. Beyen and he would exercise equal and joint responsibility along a vertical line of authority; and should one of them have to be absent the other would be in full charge. Functionally, however their duties would be divided laterally, with Mr. Beyen, for example, having responsibility for European affairs such as OEEC, EDC, Schuman Plan, Council of Europe, etc. I asked about NATO, and Dr. Luns replied that Mr. Beyen and he expected to share responsibility for NATO and Indonesia. He himself would handle UN affairs.
Dr. Luns stated that it had been a "boon" to him to have spent these last three years preceding his new job in the United States since this had given him an understanding of U.S. views and problems which he could not otherwise have acquired. He had particularly grown to appreciate and admire the constructive work of our U.N
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Mission and Delegations. He had been especially struck, in returning to the Netherlands after a year and a half's absence, Dr. Luns said, by the great progress his country had made, above all in respect to financial recovery, in the interval. There was widespread recognition - and he stressed that this was not just at the top but shared by people in all walks of life with whom he had talked - that this recovery was due in large part to U.S. aid. Dr. Van Roijen confirmed this impression; and they both agreed that compared to the ill-will the position of strength of Great Powers normally generated the U.S. had come off very well. Certainly as far as the Netherlands was concerned, there was very little resentment or anti-U.S. sentiment. Of course there were occasional diehards who were only to ready to lay the blame for the loss of Indonesia at the U.S. door, but these were exceptions. On the whole, they pronounced feeling toward the U.S. and toward the NATO undertaking as "extremely good".
EDC
I asked Dr. Luns about the feeling toward the EDC. He replied that his colleague, Mr. Beyen, was at this moment in Luxembourg discussing the Coal- Steel Community and the organization of the European Political Community and "army". Although public opinion in the Netherlands was not very familiar with the EDC, the responsible persons were fully aware that if German military forces were not created certain powers would consider the opportunity to move in "very tempting". For strong motives of "self- interest" therefore, Dr. Luns declared that the Netherlands favored the EDC; and he could assure us that the Dutch Parliament was making plans to go ahead with ratification. Mr. Perkins asked whether action could be expected by October, for instance. Dr. Luns replied that it was hard to be that specific, but that once the Dutch made up their minds to something - which usually took a little time - then they acted definitely upon it. It was the Government's firm intention, he repeated, to present the matter for action.
I said that Chancellor Adenauer was very hopeful that German parliamentary action (on the EDC) could be completed by early October. I had had no recent word from Mr. Schuman on the subject, however.
INDONESIA
Dr. Luns stated that with my permission he would like to speak about one or two specific matters. The first of these was the most recent anti-trust action in the U.S. against the big oil companies, including some foreign companies. He said that this was causing the Netherlands Government special concern because of the implication of Royal Dutch Shell, and more particularly because of the psychological impact of this development in Indonesia. He emphasized that this impact could be "disastrous", adding that he had chose the word advisedly. There were already indications of unfavorable repercussions. For example, the Indonesians have since declined to relinquish oil properties which they were on the point of returning to their old owners. Needless to say, the radical elements in Indonesia were greatly encouraged in their already sharply anti- capitalistic attitude by this action. In short, it would have the most unfortunate results for Netherlands interests in Indonesia if this matter were to be pushed further in the U.S. Dr. Luns said that he did not wish to go into greater detail on this subject, but that he would be glad to pursue it with our experts at some other time and place.
I told Dr. Luns that he had touched upon a most difficult issue. As he was probably aware, anti-trust action in U.S. public opinion had an emotional, indeed,
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almost a moral appeal, which fell only slightly short of that of the Ten Commandments. The American approach to legal action in this field was quite a different plane than the attitude toward other laws. If the Department, which was not directly involved, were to urge caution it would be tantamount to ranging itself, so to speak, on the side of sin. I said that we were well aware, of course, of the problem this matter created, and were afraid that a great deal of harm could be done to all concerned. It was a very large problem, however, in which the Department had very little to say.
Dr. Luns observed that the issue had precisely the same emotional connotations in Indonesia; just as citizens in the United States were ready to believe the worst of trusts, so the Indonesians were only too quick to lay the blame for everything on the oil companies.
UN: SURINAM AND NETHERLANDS ANTILLES
Dr. Luns said that the second matter he had on his mind concerned U.N. affairs, more specifically the problem of Surinam and the Netherlands Antilles which figured on the provisional agenda of the forthcoming General Assembly.* He then explained the Dutch position with respect to the transmission of information on these territories under Article 73(e) of the Charger substantially as presented in the note the Dutch Charge, Mr. De Beus, delivered last week to Mr. Sandifer. He described the relationship of Surinam and the Netherlands Antilles to the metropole, the status of de facto autonomy which they had enjoyed over the past two years under the Interim Order of Government and the role of the Round Table Conference in seeking to work out the "constitutional modalities" of this relationship. Dr. Luns emphasized the Dutch view that these territories would indeed resent the continued transmission of information to the U.N. on their internal affairs since this would imply a relationship of dependency which no longer existed. The Netherlands had therefore decided that it would be best to take advantage of the fact that the Round Table Conference was shortly to be resumed to justify their position that discussion of the item should be put off until the next General Assembly. As they had told Mr. Sandifer last week, they would appreciate the U.S. assistance in prevailing upon the Assembly Steering Committee to postpone debate of this item for at least a year. Dr. Luns said that next year they hoped the situation would be "less dangerous."
After summarizing what I understood to be the Netherlands position with respect to this specialized problem, I asked Mr. Perkins to have the Department study the matter.
NETHERLANDS - INDONESIAN RELATIONS: NEW GUINEA
Dr. Luns volunteered to give me a report on the present status of Netherlands - Indonesian relations. It was the consensus of recent discussions with the Secretary General of the Netherlands Ministry for Foreign affairs and with the Acting High commissioner for Indonesia that the Netherlands attach the greatest importance to continuing close relations with Indonesia and recognize the extent to which Indonesian
*As Item No. 38: Cessation of transmission of information under Article 73(e) of the Charter in respect of the Netherlands Antilles and Surinam (resolution 568 (VI) of 18 January 1952).
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Independence has gone forward. The question of Netherlands New Guinea (NNG), however, has become more difficult than ever. No one in the Netherlands, either in the Government or in parliament, Dr. Luns explained, at present believed that any concessions could be made with respect to Netherlands sovereignty over NNG. Not only were emotional factors involved, but the paradoxical situation existed that if the Netherlands were to give in on this question they would immediately be confronted with a number of even greater difficulties. Strangely enough, the maintenance of the Netherlands position on New Guinea constituted a sort of barrier which served to restrain the Indonesians from taking other actions against Dutch interests. The Indonesian reasoning seemed to be that if they acted against the Dutch in other fields they could jeopardize their chances of getting New Guinea, and hence they restrained from doing so. Furthermore, the Dutch were convinced that if they ceded on NNG, that would be only the beginning, after which would come Portuguese Timor, British North Borneo, and finally the last link of Australian New Guinea. The Netherlands Government was firmly of the opinion Dr. Luns said, that to give in on New Guinea would be highly prejudicial in the long run to Dutch-Indonesian relations.
In response to my question as to what the Indonesia attitude toward the Netherlands position was, Mr. Luns explained that it depended on the Indonesians you talked to. The Acting High Commissioner at the Hague, for example, seemed to take the reasonable attitude that although it might be difficult for Indonesia, at the start of any future negotiations, to refrain from linking the Netherlands New Guinea problem with the question of the Union Statute, he did concede that if this turned out to be a major stumbling block the Indonesians would be willing to drop it and discuss the two problems separately. On the other hand, Dr. Luns said he was not sure that this moderate approach would be shared by the Indonesian extremists who, of course, wished to have the two questions considered together. While the Indonesians were ardent proponents of self-determination as far as their territory was concerned they were unwilling to apply the same doctrine when it came to the rights of the Papuans of New Guinea. When taxed with this inconsistency they replied simply that the question of NNG was a political one.
Ambassador Van Roijen interjected that as far as Soekarno was concerned, the question had become one of personal prestige; and a couple of years ago he had frankly described himself to Van Roijen as a "New Guinea Fanatic". The Indonesians, the Ambassador went on, found the New Guinea issue a very handy diversionary tactic which they resorted to when it suited them to deflect attention from other matters. He repeated the fears Luns had expressed that, should they give in on NNG, it would simply open the way to other major difficulties for the Netherlands, such as the whole nationalization problem.
Dr. Luns said that according to information Von Balluseck, the Netherlands U.N. Representative, had very recently received from Pallai, the Indonesian Representative there, it was possible that the Indonesians might press the Netherlands New Guinea case before the U.N.
I observed that it seemed to me that the wisest course in this very difficult problem would be to try to keep the two issues separate. With respect to Mr. Soekarno, I said that it was my personal observation that he seemed, for some reason, perhaps because of the annual obligation to deliver suitable New Year's messages, to be at
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his most violent during the month of December. I added that I had talked not long to Mr. Casey, the Australian Foreign Minister, whose feelings on the subject were not exactly temperate, and that he had said that he had attempted to quiet the Indonesians down on the New Guinea issue.
As the conversation wound up, Mr. Luns told me that he planned to fly back to the Netherlands on Sunday since he had to be on hand the following Tuesday for the Opening of Parliament and the traditional Speech from the Throne. He intended, however, to return to New York for the opening of the General Assembly. In this regard he said that he had talked yesterday to Mr. Lie who was flying to London today, as a matter of fact, in an effort to persuade Eden and Schuman of the desirability of being present at the opening session of the General Assembly. Ambassador Van Roijen remarked that it might indeed be difficult to get things going without the responsible ministers being there. I said that Mr. Pearson felt that even though some of the foreign ministers were absent at the beginning, discussions should get under way; and it would always be possible to hold plenary meetings later on in the session. The Ambassador agreed that a more flexible arrangement of this kind would be an excellent idea; and he was of the opinion that it would be wiser not to make an issue at the outset of the question of postponement until after the U.S. elections. Dr. Luns said that Lie had told him that according to his most recent count, 18 members favored postponement and 19 were against. He added that he had heard that the Belgian Foreign Minister, Mr. Van Zeeland, would prefer to wait until the beginning of November. In conclusion, it seemed generally agreed that the forthcoming Assembly would undoubtedly be a difficult one.
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