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Attribution should include the following information: Andrew Kelly, ANZUS and the Early Cold War: Strategy and Diplomacy Between Australia, New Zealand and the United States, 1945-1956. Cambridge, UK: Open Book Publishers, 2018. https:// doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0141 Copyright and permissions for the reuse of many of the images included in this publication differ from the above. Copyright and permissions information for images is provided separately in the List of Illustrations. Every effort has been made to identify and contact copyright holders and any omission or error will be corrected if notification is made to the publisher. In order to access detailed and updated information on the license, please visit https://www. openbookpublishers.com/product/781#copyright. Further details about CC BY licenses are available at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ All external links were active at the time of publication unless otherwise stated and have been archived via the Internet Archive Wayback Machine at https://archive.org/web Digital material and resources associated with this volume are available at https://www. openbookpublishers.com/product/781#resources ISBN Paperback: 978-1-78374-494-7 ISBN Hardback: 978-1-78374-495-4 ISBN Digital (PDF): 978-1-78374-496-1 ISBN Digital ebook (epub): 978-1-78374-497-8 ISBN Digital ebook (mobi): 978-1-78374-498-5 DOI: 10.11647/OBP.0141 Cover image: Photo by Lÿvean Imedecis on Unsplash, https://unsplash.com/photos/ GhrBhL9kXf4. Cover design: Corin Throsby All paper used by Open Book Publishers is SFI (Sustainable Forestry Initiative) and PEFC (Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification Schemes) Certified. Printed in the United Kingdom, United States, and Australia by Lightning Source for Open Book Publishers (Cambridge, UK) Contents Acknowledgements vii List of Abbreviations ix Introduction: Disharmonious Allies 1 PART ONE: ORIGINS 11 1. Defence Problems in the Pacific 13 2. Japan, ANZAM, and the Bomb 29 3. Movement Toward an Alliance 51 4. ANZUS Negotiations 71 PART TWO: ANZUS IN FORCE 91 5. Post-Treaty Issues 93 6. Crisis in Southeast Asia 117 7. A Horrible Dilemma in the Taiwan Straits 135 8. Suez 157 Conclusion 179 Bibliography 183 List of Illustrations 197 Index 201 Acknowledgements I could not have possibly completed a book of this magnitude alone. Firstly, I must thank Peter Mauch, who originally supervised my PhD thesis and encouraged me to revise its findings into this monograph. His guidance in my academic development has been truly invaluable and it is greatly appreciated. I am also thankful to David Walton, for similar assistance as a supervisor and mentor. Secondly, I have several other people to thank at various research and tertiary institutions. David Jolliffe at the Australian Prime Ministers Centre was helpful in acquainting me with the primary material available at the Australian National Archives and the National Library of Australia. Mary Rickley, Dean Nogle and Michael Johnson at the Eisenhower Foundation were fantastic in their efforts to help me travel around Abilene, especially in very adverse weather conditions. At the Eisenhower Library, Chelsea Millner and Kevin Bailey were very helpful in finding useful material from the Eisenhower Administration. I am in debt to the many archivists I did not know by name at the Australian, New Zealand and United States National Archives who helped guide me through the important archival material. During publication, Lucy Barnes at Open Book Publishers made a time-consuming process feel incredibly easy. She provided great assistance in leading to the creation of this book. Some of the material in this book was derived in part from two previously published journal articles. In 2014, I published “The Australian- American Alliance, Recognition of China and the 1954-55 Quemoy-Matsu Crisis” with the Journal of Northeast Asian History, and in 2017 I published “Discordant Allies: Trans-Tasman Relations in the Aftermath of the ANZUS Treaty, 1951-1955” with the Journal of Australian Studies. The latter article is viii ANZUS and the Early Cold War available online at this address: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/1 4443058.2016.1275744. Finally, I am thankful to a few people in my personal life. A particular mention must go to Caitlin Holmes, who has been extremely supportive throughout all my professional endeavours. My mother and father, Sharon and Mark, have also been very supportive and deserve recognition for all the help they have given me over the years. List of Abbreviations ANZAM Australian, New Zealand and British arrangement for the joint defence of Malaya and Commonwealth interests in Southeast Asia ANZUS Treaty between Australia, New Zealand and the United States JCS United States Joint Chiefs of Staff NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organisation NSC United States National Security Council PRC People’s Republic of China ROC Republic of China SCAP Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in Japan SEATO Southeast Asia Treaty Organisation Introduction: Disharmonious Allies In August 1952, delegates from Australia, New Zealand and the United States met in Honolulu for the first formal round of discussions over how the ANZUS Treaty—a defence alliance signed by these countries in September 1951—would work in practice. The treaty required each signatory to “respond to the common danger” in the Pacific, and these powers indeed saw mutual dangers at the time. The Korean War had been raging for over a year and showed no immediate signs of ending. A Communist government in China appeared to have aggressive intentions. Local revolutionaries in Indochina and Malaya had demanded sovereignty from their colonial governments. Framed in this light, a closer strategic relationship between the ANZUS powers should have been cooperative and rather straightforward. This was certainly not the case. In advance of Council meetings in Hawaii, Percy Spender—architect of the ANZUS Treaty and then Australian Ambassador in Washington—accused the Pentagon of purposely “diminishing the importance” of the alliance to avoid serious consultation with Australia. According to Spender, even Australia’s former enemies— Germany, Italy and Japan—had “the opportunity of consultation on vital matters in a manner which so far has been denied to Australia.”1 Without a doubt, refusing to consult seriously with the Australians was an American objective. The US Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) had advised Secretary of State Dean Acheson that joint planning with Australia and New Zealand would mean “serious and far-reaching disadvantages to the present and projected 1 Spender to Casey, 18 March 1952, Spender Papers, Box 1, National Library of Australia (hereafter NLA). © 2018 Andrew Kelly, CC BY 4.0 https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0141.10 2 ANZUS and the Early Cold War state of United States planning for a global war.”2 This position aggravated the Australians, yet the New Zealanders did not share this view, despite their similar geopolitical circumstances. As one adviser told Head of the New Zealand External Affairs Department Alister McIntosh, New Zealand “did not share the long-standing Australian objective of infiltration into the world’s policy-making hierarchy” after claiming that the Australian delegation almost demanded this outright at Honolulu.3 McIntosh certainly sympathised with this opinion, and even conceded later that New Zealand “never wanted the damn Pacific Pact in the first place.”4 How did three allied powers—which shared a common language, similar historical roots and democratic liberal institutions—leave Hawaii with such competing views about the practicality of an alliance signed less than one year earlier? To some extent, disagreements between the ANZUS powers were symbolic of the challenging and divisive time in which the treaty was conceived. While in broad terms these countries shared similar political objectives in combating Soviet-led Communism during the early stages of the Cold War, the underlying purpose of this treaty was unique for each signatory and often created complex diplomatic tensions in the trilateral relationship. Australia, undeniably the most enthusiastic treaty member, viewed ANZUS as a means to rebalance its traditional ties with Britain by fostering a closer strategic relationship with the United States. The treaty limited the likelihood of future existential threats such as those posed by Japan in late 1942, and it provided an additional avenue for Canberra to voice its concerns about world affairs. Across the Tasman Sea, policymakers in New Zealand were more reluctant to forge a closer political relationship with the United States if it meant damaging relations with Britain. For Wellington, one of the major benefits of ANZUS was that it simply allowed New Zealand to continue its military commitments to the British cause in the Middle East. After all, as Jatinder Mann pointed out about the post-war years, 2 Marshall to Acheson, 16 January 1951, Foreign Relations of the United States Series (hereafter FRUS) 1951 Vol. VI, 141. 3 Memorandum for McIntosh, 25 July 1952, Archives NZ, EA, 111/3/3/1 Part 8.