CHAPTER 4

Selective Membership

Exclusion from ANZUS embarrassed British policymakers and undermined many of the United Kingdom’s interests in the Asia-Pacific region. Clement Attlee had initially accepted exclusion, but Winston Churchill’s election to office in October 1951 resulted in a concerted effort to gain membership. Although Australia and New Zealand remained sympathetic to an expanded treaty, both feared that pushing British membership too forcefully risked the United States dissolving the ANZUS Treaty. Despite enjoying a degree of recovery, economic limitations and ongoing commitments to Europe and the Middle East meant that the United Kingdom was unable to offer the antipodean states a credible alternative to existing arrangements.1 Australia and New Zealand consequently attempted to secure membership for Britain but prioritized ongoing cooperation with the United States.

The major obstacle to British membership in ANZUS remained the United States. Despite concerted diplomatic efforts, U.S. concerns about incorporating the United Kingdom and broader British Commonwealth commitments into ANZUS proved irresolvable. As far as U.S. policymakers interpreted matters, British inclusion provided few benefits and considerable economic and strategic drawbacks. Yet U.S. officials preferred to use arguments about race and imperialism to justify British omission from the treaty. The United States remained committed to maintaining ANZUS in its existing form and rebuffed efforts by the antipodean powers to secure British inclusion.

Explaining Exclusion

All the members of ANZUS had agreed to exclude the United Kingdom from membership in early 1951. London accurately perceived Washington to be the driving force behind this decision. Explanations for exclusion, however, differed on either side of the Atlantic. Senior elements within the Labour government and the Conservative opposition believed that British exclusion reflected Attlee’s decision to recognize Mao’s China in January 1950. London’s choice was certainly distasteful to U.S. policymakers given that the president himself believed that the British had not played “very squarely with us on this matter.”2 Yet, as the British ambassador to Washington reported to London, the U.S. reaction was “less violent than we feared.”³ Moreover, little mention of the United Kingdom’s China policy surfaces in U.S. documentation concerning British exclusion from ANZUS. To be sure, both countries would increasingly divide in their strategic approach toward China in the early 1950s, a schism in which Australia and New Zealand were reluctant to be drawn.⁴ Nevertheless, Britain’s decision to recognize Mao’s China was at best only a marginal factor behind U.S. decision making concerning ANZUS.

The United States’ public explanations for maintaining the existing agreement instead centered on perceptions of race and inequality in the Asia-Pacific region. U.S. officials explained that British exclusion from ANZUS reflected anxieties about creating an “Anglo-Saxon” or “white man’s club” in Asia rather than citing strategic or economic concerns. British membership would apparently create such a club, whereas a limited agreement would help win the propaganda battle against the Soviet Union, pacify complaints emanating from the Indian government about U.S. racism, and avoid antagonizing the United States’ Asian allies such as the Philippines.⁵

U.S. justifications for excluding the United Kingdom from ANZUS were not insincere rhetoric. Ideas about race were important to many key U.S. policymakers. John Foster Dulles, for example, had long been concerned that the United States’ domestic racial inequality would undermine its international position and hurt what he saw as the country’s mission to promote international justice.⁶ Dulles had grown increasingly anxious throughout the Japanese peace treaty negotiations that Asia-Pacific countries would construe the U.S.’s dictating of terms as an example of imperialism. The Soviet Union certainly stressed the domination of the negotiations by the United States with its allies in such terms. Such rhetoric was important not only because of the ongoing propaganda battle between East and West but also because accusations of racism and imperialism would make the task of agreeing and implementing the terms of a sustainable and legitimate Japanese peace treaty much more difficult. U.S. policymakers therefore made a concerted effort to downplay such allegations and sought to convince the international community that they were committed to the fair and equal treatment of all peoples regardless of race. Dulles informed his British counterparts in 1951 that the U.S. had to ensure that Western immigration laws did not continue to treat the Japanese as an “inferior people,” and that the “policies of the United States, Australia, and New Zealand present a problem” in this regard.7

Dean Acheson, in conversation with his Filipino counterpart, Carlos Romulo, agreed that the creation of any new Pacific security pact should not have a “racial foundation” and could not exclusively comprise “white” countries.⁸ Acheson was also concerned that the international community would construe U.S. actions in the Asia-Pacific as acting in a “colonialist fashion.” As the U.S. secretary of state learned following the recent decision by Washington to provide support to France for its war inside Indochina, U.S. foreign policy gave the “impression that we were helping maintain a vestige of French, British or Dutch control.” As such, Washington had unintentionally bolstered “the remnants of hated colonial regimes in this area.”⁹ As the Washington Post opined in its op-ed, the United Kingdom had to be excluded from ANZUS to ensure that the United States was not supporting “colonialism” in the region.¹⁰ Other leaders also expressed similar concerns. South Korea’s foreign minister Ben Limb, for instance, wrote in Foreign Affairs that ANZUS could be viewed by Asian states as a “white man’s pact” that would hurt the United States’ alliances in the region.¹¹

These issues mattered over the longer term because Communism had become more attractive to the nationalist movements across Southeast Asia that were assuming greater prominence in the region.¹² The United States’ domestic actions were just as important as senior policymakers throughout the Truman administration were similarly concerned that domestic racial problems in the U.S. would infringe on the nation’s ability to fight the Cold War. Communist propagandists certainly targeted such issues and U.S. diplomats were sensitive to such charges and their Cold War implications.¹³ Accusations of acting in a racist and colonist fashion in both the domestic and international realm therefore mattered to policymakers in Washington. Nevertheless, explaining the U.S. motivation to exclude the United Kingdom from ANZUS on grounds of racial equality is only partially convincing.

As many U.S. policymakers understood, the creation of ANZUS had already established a “white man’s pact” in the region. The creation of the trilateral alliance would soon give the impression to some Asian countries that the United States was “appearing to join with other Western powers behind the backs of the Asians in organizations for the defense of the Far East or parts of the Far East.”14 As one Australian memorandum from March 1951 notes, “There was a danger that a security pact limited to the three white Pacific nations would raise serious political problems for the United States in the Philippines.”¹⁵ Dulles was understandably concerned about an exclusively “white” security pact, and in part this explains why he pushed for Philippine membership of ANZUS during the Canberra talks. Washington also privately recognized that both Australia and New Zealand had wanted to exclude the Philippines from membership largely because they desired a “white” Pacific security pact.¹⁶

Conceivably, British inclusion could have signaled an unwelcome revival of “Western imperialism,” given the country’s still vast empire, or could have intensified claims of racism. Yet onlookers would surely struggle to see how the addition of the United Kingdom would somehow make ANZUS dramatically more “Western” or a “white man’s club” given that each was effectively already the case, especially considering the “white Australia” and “white New Zealand” immigration policies that existed at this time. While the antipodean governments were slowly dismantling such policies, strict immigration controls against nonwhites persisted in both countries until the 1960s. The creation of ANZUS therefore clearly associated the United States, which itself was afflicted with enormous racial injustice, with two countries that practiced racial discrimination.¹⁷ Washington was willing to accept such an association, however, if it complemented its broader strategic and economic ambitions.

References to race, specifically the dangers of creating a “white man’s club,” helped defend British exclusion from ANZUS and obscured more self-interested motivations behind U.S. policy. Two other factors help explain why the United States preferred to exclude the United Kingdom from the ANZUS arrangement. The first revolved around a continued fear within the U.S. policymaking establishment that British membership in ANZUS would inevitably lead to problematic calls from other states, including France, the Netherlands, Portugal, Japan, Singapore, Indonesia, and Thailand, to be included in a U.S. security umbrella for the entire Asia-Pacific. Such a broad-based security alliance was something that U.S. policymakers believed was simply unaffordable.¹⁸ Truman’s rearmament program had already produced a considerable strain on the U.S. economy.¹⁹ U.S. strategic planners feared the misallocation of scarce resources. They were concerned that British membership in a new Pacific security pact would misdirect both Washington’s and London’s limited military and economic power away from strategic priorities, namely Western Europe, the Mediterranean, and the Middle East. From Washington’s perspective, the British economy remained in a perilous state and was afflicted with “underlying difficulties” that stemmed from the “British failure to shake out the rigidities in their economy and become competitive.”20 Given this economic weakness, the Truman administration concluded that U.S. interests were best served by encouraging the United Kingdom to become a much more regionalized power and integrate itself into the emerging political-economic union in Western Europe.²¹

The second factor, which emanated from the JCS and the Department of Defense in Washington, concerned the risk of European powers manipulating the United States into defending their colonial possessions under the guise of fighting against Communism. Such fears had merit given the fact that Britain was already fighting an insurgency inside Malaya. Membership of ANZUS would allow London to pressure Washington to provide greater assistance for such wars, despite being largely a British responsibility.²² Such a network could allow the United Kingdom to exercise more influence over strategic planning for the region, which the United States now currently dominated. During their discussions with the United Kingdom on other highly sensitive matters, the U.S. made a point of refusing to discuss their strategic plans for the Asia-Pacific. If membership extended to the British, then the French would likely seek inclusion. ANZUS would then assume the character of a Southeast Asian security pact, which France could consequently utilize as a means to encourage greater assistance for French forces inside Indochina. The JCS were unwilling to expand membership of ANZUS and risk either the British or French using it to save their colonial positions.²³

Seeking Inclusion

The Attlee government had sought to downplay the United Kingdom’s exclusion from ANZUS throughout 1951. Some British policymakers nevertheless found claims of creating a “white man’s pact” unconvincing given current ANZUS membership and the United States’ close association with the United Kingdom in many other parts of the globe. They protested in private that U.S. domestic policies toward nonwhite Americans hardly placed the United States in a position to lecture others about racial equality. The British government also feared that other states might construe U.S. comments about a “white man’s pact” as carrying negative racial undertones thereby undermining British efforts to maintain possessions throughout the Asia-Pacific and hampering efforts to improve security ties with countries across the region.24

Both the British Foreign Office and the Colonial Office continued with their efforts to convince the prime minister to push the case for membership in ANZUS more forcefully with the United States. The British ambassador to Washington, Sir Oliver Franks, raised the subject with Acheson but could not convince the U.S. secretary of state to change his mind.²⁵ Such failures were disappointing for London. Yet the British prime minister steadfastly refused to allow the topic to divert from his central tasks of maintaining close U.S.-UK relations and prioritizing the defense of Europe and the Middle East.²⁶ Exclusion from ANZUS was irritating, but rectifying this situation would not become a central ambition of British foreign policy while Attlee remained in office.

Electoral defeat for Attlee in the 1951 general election brought with it a swift reversal in policy. On October 26, Winston Churchill returned to office with a small parliamentary majority. He had returned to Downing Street for his final premiership at the age of almost seventy-seven. Out of office, Churchill had publicly lamented how the Labour government followed policies that weakened the British Empire. Britain’s handling of India, coupled with retreat from Palestine, was strategic folly, which, in Churchill’s mind, cast serious doubt about the strength of Britain’s global position. As Churchill announced to the House of Commons, “The British Empire seems to be running off…. The haste is appalling. ‘Scuttle’ is the word, and the only word, that can be applied.”²⁷ Exclusion from the ANZUS Treaty in Churchill’s assessment was indicative of the Labour government’s mishandling of Britain’s position as a great power. Shortly after taking office, therefore, the prime minister demanded membership in ANZUS.

Churchill’s attitude to British exclusion from ANZUS reflected a mixture of belief and strategy.²⁸ The prime minister genuinely believed in the connection between the “mother country” and the “Dominions.” Churchill was committed to the maintenance of the British Empire and Commonwealth and understood it to be a force for good in the world. Churchill’s doctor, Lord Moran, noted that his patient’s attachment to the defense of the British Empire was not simply “bravado” exercised in front of various audiences. Instead, Churchill “was affirming a faith for which he was prepared to give his life.”²⁹ Others including the Canadian prime minister Mackenzie King observed that “the British Empire and Commonwealth is a religion” to Churchill.³⁰ It is fair to suggest that the British Empire held a lifelong emotional pull over the prime minister.³¹ Exclusion from ANZUS therefore represented a direct challenge to the maintenance of what Churchill still referred to as the British Empire. If Australia and New Zealand, seen by many in London as the most loyal of all the Dominions, were “going off” with the United States, then the future looked bleak for the British Commonwealth. Churchill was determined to ensure that Britain secured membership in ANZUS or, if this objective proved impossible, to make the organization irrelevant by creating something better.

These factors explain only part of Churchill’s interest in the ANZUS Treaty. Although Churchill’s attachment to the British Empire may have been strong, it had never prevented him from prioritizing the defense of the mother country over Britain’s possessions throughout the Asia-Pacific as evidenced during World War II. As events throughout the region grew steadily more important to the developing global Cold War, inclusion in ANZUS became ever more significant as it would allow Britain to exert more influence over U.S. strategy throughout the region. Churchill understood that if both Australia and New Zealand shared an exclusive arrangement with the United States, then it was likely that both powers would prioritize their own strategic defense rather than that of the British Commonwealth. In essence, both Canberra and Wellington would look to defend the “near north” to the detriment of the Middle East, Mediterranean, and Western Europe, which Churchill believed should remain the core focus of British Commonwealth security efforts.32

Churchill had also grown increasingly concerned about the course of international relations. Washington’s Cold War policies were, in the private estimations of the prime minister, nearly as dangerous to global peace as the policies pursued by the Kremlin.³³ The advent of the atomic age convinced the prime minister that it was imperative to avoid escalating political disagreement with the Communist world into a global war. Unnecessary provocation of the Soviet Union risked the very survival of the British Commonwealth. Churchill was clear that continual confrontation between the West and the Communist powers had to be tempered and negotiations about fundamental political differences needed to resume. Preventing an escalation of hostilities inside Korea became a key element of Churchill’s diplomacy with Washington.³⁴ Inside Europe, the British government had played a key role as a partner to the United States within NATO and as one of the four occupying powers inside Germany. Throughout Asia and the Pacific, however, no such position existed. This was an omission that Churchill sought to rectify.³⁵

Churchill’s ideas ranged from the grandiose—namely, a large Pacific security pact that would bring together numerous states to combat the rising influence of Communism throughout the region—to the mundane, such as Britain securing “observer status” within ANZUS. As the term suggests, a British observer would be present during private meetings of the ANZUS Council and would thus be able to make a full record of the discussions.36 All such efforts reflected the desire of the British government to exert a greater degree of influence over Western strategy for the Pacific. This would ensure Australian and New Zealand commitments to British priorities, soothe unnecessarily belligerent U.S. policies toward Communist China, and in turn promote superpower détente. As such, gaining entry into ANZUS was a priority for Churchill.³⁷

Committing resources to ANZUS or creating a new Pacific security pact would cost money, however, which the British government lacked. On taking office, Chancellor of the Exchequer Richard Austin “Rab” Butler was horrified to learn of the magnitude of national borrowing and public expenditure of the Attlee government. As Butler informed the cabinet, the United Kingdom was simply doing “too much” for Western defense. Butler subsequently advised Churchill that it was imperative for the United Kingdom to reduce defense expenditure and let others spend more on their own security needs.³⁸ Economic concerns had assumed greater prominence as the Korean War stabilized. The Conservative government consequently pursued further defense cutbacks in order to improve the state of the British economy.³⁹ Financial weakness restricted the type of security guarantees the British government could offer to Australian and New Zealand policymakers. Indeed, the limitations of the United Kingdom’s supply capacity encouraged Australia to turn toward the United States for additional resources for accelerated economic development.⁴⁰

Churchill would have to utilize his personal charisma and exploit the emotional ties with antipodean policymakers to achieve his objective of ANZUS membership or a wider security pact in the region. To be sure, other areas of alliance cooperation existed between the three states, which helped in a broader sense. Both Australia and New Zealand had gained access to U.S. signals intelligence and a trickle of gossip via the British relationship with the United States.⁴¹ Yet there appears to be no mention of coercive diplomacy, where threats to repeal existing commitments could be used to British advantage. The absence of such an approach likely reflects doubts about what such efforts might accomplish, or simply fear that the U.S. would provide any intelligence assessments to Canberra and Wellington bilaterally. London instead adopted a two-pronged diplomatic strategy, making clear appeals to Washington while pursuing assertive efforts with Canberra and Wellington.

The diplomatic approach first involved directly lobbying Washington for British membership in ANZUS followed by efforts to grant Britain at least observer status. Churchill’s personal standing and celebrity offered some diplomatic advantage. According to Acheson, Truman “often spoke of Churchill as the greatest public figure of our age,” a point that Ache-son himself believed to be an “understatement.”42 Furthermore, the United Kingdom remained, as one internal U.S. policy-planning document termed it, “of critical importance” to promoting U.S. strategic interests, not least in being able to counter likely Soviet moves in a general war.⁴³ As such, London’s voice would have to be heard. British insistence on raising ANZUS membership therefore forced U.S. policymakers to confront the issue of the United Kingdom’s exclusion head on.

Churchill took the opportunity to raise the subject during his visit to Washington during December 1951. The prime minister’s hosts gently deflected his suggestions and sought to downplay all his concerns. Truman and his key advisers believed that Churchill’s best days were behind him and had not been keen on the prime minister’s visit, contrary to what the president suggested in his memoirs.⁴⁴ Moreover, U.S. planning material for the visit was more concerned with the declining fortunes of the British economy. Economic malaise could hurt U.S. efforts to galvanize the Western alliance in containing Soviet power.⁴⁵ The visit nevertheless went without major incident, and the Truman administration politely listened to the prime minister’s complaints and suggestions.⁴⁶ Such delicacy should not obscure Washington’s decision to ignore Churchill’s appeals on ANZUS. Furthermore, when Truman and Acheson suggested to Churchill that they would seek British views on “creating some real power in the Far East,” they had both deliberately separated this topic from the question of British membership in ANZUS. The question of British membership was a subject on which the president and his staff refused to be drawn.⁴⁷ Many British policymakers perceived growing U.S. power as an increasing challenge to Britain’s global interests. Harold Macmillan, rising star of the Conservative Party and future prime minister, later lamented in his diary about how the United States treated Britain: “They treat us worse than they do any country in Europe. They undermine our political and commercial influence all over the world. Yet all this they do (so ambivalent is their policy) with only one half of their mind and purpose. The other half is just as friendly and loyal as in the days of the war.”⁴⁸

Facing resistance from Washington, Churchill focused on Canberra and Wellington. He now asked for both Menzies and Holland to lobby the United States to expand the membership of ANZUS. Canberra and Wellington were sympathetic, not least because antipodean officials recognized that expanding ANZUS might provide them with additional benefits. British membership could encourage the United States to commit to more extensive security planning and cooperation and would avoid repeating strategic defense planning within the framework of ANZAM planning.49 Such potential benefits, however, had to balance against the likely risks. The United States had always made clear its objections to British membership in ANZUS, and both antipo-dean powers feared that by pushing for such a change they might jeopardize the treaty itself.

To help persuade Canberra and Wellington to support British efforts toward obtaining ANZUS membership, Churchill sought to improve existing British Commonwealth security cooperation in the Asia-Pacific. Despite repeated warnings from the Treasury about the precious state of national finances, the British prime minister had few qualms about offering additional resources.⁵⁰ Churchill offered detailed staff talks about how to uphold security throughout the ANZAM region in the longer term and suggestions about what the British would provide militarily to the region to make such planning credible. Churchill also mentioned the creation of a broader Pacific security framework, which would establish a central political body that could dictate interalliance strategy throughout the region and would have a special focus on Southeast Asia. The offer also included the alluring concession that Australia would take the leading role in such an organization.⁵¹ Most of Churchill’s Pacific security proposals in this period remained abstract and largely undeveloped, which raises questions about their credibility, especially given the weakened state of British finances. Nevertheless, he had designed such efforts to show that the United Kingdom was still capable of exercising material influence over events in the Asia-Pacific and would therefore be a positive addition to ANZUS.

Both Canberra and Wellington gave Churchill’s ideas considerable thought. In April 1952, Holland confirmed that “the United Kingdom must be brought in” to ANZUS.⁵² Of the three members of ANZUS, New Zealand had always been the most favorable to British membership. Holland sought the inclusion of the United Kingdom at least partially as a means of ensuring broader and more comprehensive security cooperation in the region that would benefit his country’s security.⁵³ These strategic calculations also helped spark Menzies’s interest in Churchill’s ideas. He concluded that they provided an opportunity to turn ANZUS into a functioning security alliance, which would include detailed strategic planning and allocating the requisite military resources. As the Australian prime minister suggested to his closest security advisers, British membership would increase the level of importance attached to the defense of the Asia-Pacific by the United Kingdom and United States.54 There was considerable support for Menzies’s thinking in the Australian Defence Department. As strategic planning between Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom already existed within the context of ANZAM, it was illogical to replicate this within the framework of some future ANZUS planning that omitted the British entirely. In addition, in the event of a global war, Britain’s military contribution would be imperative to ensuring that Australian sea-lanes remained open. Finding a solution to British omission from ANZUS was therefore important.⁵⁵

Churchill’s plans clearly placed far greater importance on the Asia-Pacific as a strategic area of concern and could potentially improve U.S. security commitments to the region. Australian officials remained keenly aware that ANZAM planning was of limited value without U.S. assistance in the event of a global war. As the Australian Defence Committee had privately concluded, “Defence arrangements for the ANZAM region must be related to Allied global strategy.”⁵⁶ The ideas emanating from London could also perhaps convince Washington to take a keener interest in ANZUS. In the assessment of Australian and New Zealand officials, the U.S. had shown a disappointing lack of interest in ANZUS.⁵⁷ Obtaining a formal association with NATO or establishing something similar in the Pacific motivated antipodean enthusiasm for Churchill’s plans. Canberra agreed with Wellington that they would both support London’s ambition to join ANZUS. Alternatively, at the very least, they should grant the United Kingdom observer status within ANZUS with a view to a more formal association in the future. U.S. resistance, however, would once again undermine the pursuit of an extended security pact in the Asia-Pacific region.

Debating Membership

Throughout 1952, the antipodean powers continued discussions concerning the nature of the ANZUS alliance.⁵⁸ New Zealand remained more committed to British inclusion than Australia, but both countries agreed that they would benefit from such an expanded membership. Menzies’s return visit to Washington over the summer of 1952 provided an opportunity to assess the United States’ position on this matter. Yet when the Australian prime minister ventured abroad in May, contrary to the expectations of the Truman administration, he focused not on ANZUS but on discussing the terms of a possible economic development package for Australia. Menzies had again emphasized to Acheson the need for further economic assistance for Australia because it did not possess the necessary dollars to purchase vital military equipment that was required to uphold its existing security commitments. A loan from the United States was required because other viable sources, such as the United Kingdom, did not have sufficient quantities of dollars. The World Bank, which did have the resources, could not offer loans to countries to purchase military equipment.59

In subsequent discussions with Acheson in June, Menzies never really advanced the cause for British membership in ANZUS. Acheson would only go as far to suggest that he was willing to grant Britain observer status, but he was concerned that such a move would lead to similar requests from the likes of the Philippines and Indonesia. Menzies agreed with Acheson that they should put to one side the subject of ANZUS expansion for the time being.⁶⁰ Menzies once again avoided direct confrontation on the matter, preferring to leave the issue until the outcome looked more favorable.

In his talks in Washington, Menzies instead focused on three other major international issues. First, he sought to convince the president of the need for much fuller cooperation between the ANZUS powers. Second, he sought a deeper U.S. commitment to the Southeast Asian region. U.S. planning for Southeast Asia could also include the participation of the United Kingdom, thereby distributing these additional responsibilities throughout the Western alliance. Third, Menzies tried to persuade the president that Australia needed formal access to NATO planning so that it could improve its support for broader U.S. designs in the Cold War.⁶¹

Menzies understood geographical factors meant that Australia could not be a member of NATO and so did not request membership. He did say, however, that he felt decisions taken by NATO “had a direct effect on Australia and that therefore Australia had a very real interest in the activity of NATO.” Menzies was clear that Australia “really wanted two things: (a) some access to the thinking and doing of NATO and (b) some right to offer views to NATO on matters directly affecting Australian interests.”⁶² Percy Spender, now serving as the Australian ambassador to Washington, suggested that Australia should have the right to be heard not only with respect to general strategic considerations but especially on matters directly affecting Australia. The ambassador said that Australia was not content to be “the hair on the tail of the dog.” They felt they, at least, should be part of “the hide of the dog itself.”⁶³

Menzies was unable to convince the administration to shift current U.S. policies and grant Australia formal access to NATO planning. Nor was he able to secure a major loan, principally due to the difficulty of allocating U.S. resources to less pressing concerns. The best that Menzies could obtain was a vague assurance that the United States remained “open minded” on “working out some method [of] dealing with countries outside [the] NATO area.”64 The Australian prime minister therefore reluctantly conceded defeat on this issue but maintained hopes of progress in future negotiations.

The Australian prime minister subsequently visited the United Kingdom in June 1952. Menzies had been concerned that a serious argument with Churchill would develop so had instructed his officials to provide him with detailed briefing material that would contain a wide array of data to prove that Australia was more than pulling its weight in providing for British Commonwealth defense.⁶⁵ Discussions remained cordial, but obvious tensions between the two prime ministers concerning British exclusion from ANZUS were never far from the surface.⁶⁶ Churchill once again pushed for membership, but the issue proved to be less contentious than Australian officials had initially feared. Menzies helped matters by explaining, albeit disingenuously, that he had discussed British membership in ANZUS in his recent talks with Truman. By raising the subject briefly in Washington, Menzies could plausibly claim to have acted in good faith. But by doing so in such a limited manner, he avoided risking the United States’ commitment to the ANZUS Treaty. The Australian prime minister sensibly claimed that he personally wanted Britain to be a member of ANZUS, but the major obstacle remained the United States. Menzies thus redirected British complaints toward the U.S., which was in a better position than either Australia or New Zealand to absorb such criticism. By focusing London’s ire against Washington, the United Kingdom could in turn perhaps convince the United States to provide a more comprehensive security alliance for the Asia-Pacific. Menzies’s diplomacy therefore sought to safeguard and promote Australian interests regardless of the outcome of U.S.-UK diplomacy.

London once again directed its attention to Washington but patience across the Atlantic was wearing thin.⁶⁷ The Truman administration had repeatedly explained to the British that ANZUS was a limited security pact. Moreover, the treaty supported British interests by providing the security guarantee that would allow Australia and New Zealand to uphold their crucial military contributions to British Commonwealth commitments in the Middle East and Mediterranean. As strategic planners in Washington believed, if the United Kingdom was to uphold its strategic responsibilities in the defense of the general area of the Middle East, then “substantial armed forces from Australia and New Zealand as well as other commonwealth nations will, in all probability, have to be provided.”⁶⁸ At a British Commonwealth Defence Ministers meeting in June 1951, Australian and New Zealand representatives emphasized how the U.S. guarantee in the Asia-Pacific would allow both Canberra and Wellington to fulfill their British Commonwealth obligations in the Middle East and Mediterranean.69 Australia later demonstrated its commitment with the eventual dispatch of two fighter squadrons to Malta in July 1952.⁷⁰

The Truman administration further reasoned that U.S.-UK discussions about Asia-Pacific security already occurred during existing bilateral discussions and had included the participation of Spender. Accordingly, the U.S. government did not accept that complaints about omission from ANZUS had markedly negative consequences for British interests.⁷¹ U.S. officials were keen to stress that British demands were unreasonable given that the Conservative government was embarking on a round of defense cuts, which called into question London’s ability to maintain its existing global security commitments. The foreign secretary Anthony Eden had certainly articulated to the British cabinet that the United Kingdom could not extend its global responsibilities any further. Churchill reluctantly accepted this point but still believed that he should seek membership in any new security organizations in the Asia-Pacific. Existing resources would simply have to stretch a little further.⁷²

London had managed to place considerable pressure on Washington, Canberra, and Wellington by continually raising the issue of British exclusion in bilateral forums.⁷³ Because of this pressure, the first meeting of the ANZUS Council, held in Honolulu, Hawaii, on 4–6 August 1952, surrendered a considerable amount of time discussing the United Kingdom’s relationship to the treaty. During discussions, Australia’s minister for external affairs, Richard Casey, suggested that they needed to do something to appease British sensibilities. Failure to do so, he warned, risked ANZUS expanding into a larger and more dangerous political issue. Casey proposed that if membership was impossible, then the United Kingdom should secure observer status. The New Zealand representative, Clifton Webb, supported Casey’s claims. As Casey emphasized, the latter proposal would allow the United Kingdom to send an official to observe but not participate in ANZUS discussions. Such a compromise would help undermine British complaints that decisions of strategic importance were taking place without their knowledge. Casey’s efforts, however, failed to convince Acheson. As the New Zealand minute of the meeting noted, the question of British participation in ANZUS proved to be one of “considerable difficulty.”⁷⁴ Hinting at broader strategic priorities, Acheson argued that allowing the British observer status would cause “acute embarrassment” for other countries not given similar privileges. If the United Kingdom secured either observer status or membership in ANZUS, then similar concessions would have to be offered to the likes of France and the Philippines.⁷⁵

Casey took Acheson’s reluctance as an indicator to move the discussion forward. “Putting the flesh” onto the bones of ANZUS remained the primary task for both Casey and Webb. Evolving security developments in the Asia-Pacific increasingly concerned the antipodean powers. Recent French setbacks in Indochina, for instance, so alarmed the New Zealand policymaking bureaucracy that Leslie Munro, the New Zealand minister to Washington, met with Acheson to press the case that additional U.S. support should be provided to France to prevent Communist success in Indochina. This action from Wellington mirrored that by Canberra as Menzies had also personally urged Truman and Acheson to increase U.S. assistance for France in Indochina.76 When the matter was again raised at the ANZUS Council meeting in August 1952, Acheson explained that “the Americans were convinced that the French forces could hold Indochina, and that there was no need to send more troops there at the moment.”⁷⁷

British membership in ANZUS was an important subject, but the priority for both Australia and New Zealand was to establish real military cooperation between the existing three members. Antipodean ambitions thus focused on reaching agreement with the United States on implementing joint military planning within the framework of ANZUS as well as trying to pry information out of the Americans concerning their broader strategic plans for regional security. Casey was especially forthright in trying to press the Americans to accept the establishment of a formal link between ANZUS planning and U.S. global strategic planning. This proposal would involve basing military representatives from Canberra in Washington so that they could liaise with the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff. In response, Acheson made clear to Casey that the JCS were extremely reluctant to accommodate any additional staff officers in Washington. The JCS and Department of Defense had continued to express their disinclination to provide any “military organization” in connection to ANZUS.⁷⁸ Furthermore, as Acheson argued, all discussion on Asia-Pacific strategy actually took place in Honolulu so it made better sense to base antipodean representatives there.⁷⁹ Acheson’s statement revealed that the U.S. saw ANZUS as a strictly regional security pact. By insisting that Australian and New Zealand representatives be based in Honolulu and not Washington, Acheson had clearly demarcated where he believed the antipodean powers should direct their efforts in the Cold War.

Subsequent discussion failed to shift Acheson’s initial position. The U.S. secretary of state repeatedly rebuffed Australian and New Zealand suggestions for the creation of joint military planning or for antipodean representatives to be based in Washington.⁸⁰ Though it was reported that the “Americans were very frank in discussing … their military thinking over a wide range of South East Asian problems,” the U.S. government preferred not to formalize military planning within ANZUS and wanted all military discussions between the three countries to function principally in an advisory fashion.81 Efforts to link ANZUS to broader U.S. plans for global strategy proved equally futile. As Webb outlined to his cabinet colleagues on returning to Wellington, Acheson simply would not agree to undertake increased military planning at this stage.⁸²

Yet it would be a mistake to conclude that the recent ANZUS Council meeting was a complete failure for Australian and New Zealand strategic ambitions. Webb, for instance, told his colleagues that he believed the meeting to have been a success.⁸³ To justify this claim, he explained that “we were very lucky” to have ANZUS.⁸⁴ Indeed, Acheson had mentioned that the burgeoning military cooperation between the countries could improve in the future and that existing military machinery was “provisional” and “subject to change in the light of experience.”⁸⁵ In addition, during Acheson’s closing conference speech, he announced that he hoped the work of the ANZUS Council would lead to an “even closer relationship” with Australia and New Zealand. Such rhetoric gained substance as Acheson announced that Admiral Radford, commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, would now begin to liaise with Australian and New Zealand representatives in Honolulu about future security cooperation.⁸⁶

Antipodean ambitions for closer military cooperation with Washington had evidently made some progress by the end of the first ANZUS Council meeting, even if it had not gone as far as Canberra or Wellington had desired. As such, at the conclusion of the ANZUS conference in August 1952, the participants issued a joint communiqué, which, while not strictly forbidding British membership, made it clear that none of the member states were looking to expand the agreement in the immediate future.⁸⁷ Both the Menzies and Holland governments might have preferred British membership in ANZUS, but they were unwilling to push the point for fear it could endanger the nascent treaty.⁸⁸

Maintaining Exclusion

British officials had watched the ANZUS discussions closely to learn whether the United Kingdom would secure membership in the organization. The public communiqué issued at the end of the conference made clear that Britain’s exclusion would continue. London nevertheless sought confirmation from the ANZUS members that this was in fact the whole story.⁸⁹ The response, which confirmed British suspicions of continued exclusion, left senior policymakers seething.90 They were especially angered by the United States’ claim that British inclusion was unacceptable because it would necessitate membership for other European states. “What impudence to suggest that France and I suppose Portugal (who have interests in these waters),” Churchill wrote to Eden, “are on the same terms with Australia and New Zealand as Britain. If this point became public in either of these countries, I am sure that would be a violent re-action. This is not a thing to let slip. We should bite hard.”⁹¹

Churchill exhibited his anger in conversation with both the high commissioners from Australia and New Zealand. As the New Zealand high commissioner reported, he was “trying to calm [Churchill] down” but he was “worked up” because “he was led to believe that Australia and New Zealand desired British participation but submitted to American pressure and even more, because the American reply put Britain and the Philippines on the same level.”⁹² There was growing frustration in British policymaking circles regarding the seemingly illogical exclusion of the United Kingdom from ANZUS. According to the New Zealand high commissioner in London: “[Churchill] argues that it would be militarily impossible to plan defence of Australia and New Zealand against Russia, China or Japan without considering the whole potential threat from Asia and of course concentrating primarily on South East Asia…. If the ANZUS partners are to plan for the defence of areas which include British territories and large British commitments he claims Britain has at least right to an observer.”⁹³ Lord Salisbury, the secretary of state for the Dominions, was equally as frustrated, grumbling that the attitude of the Dominions was “deplorable” and “tiresome.”⁹⁴ Admiral McGrigor, the first sea lord, was, as reported in Australian circles, “rampaging” about Australia’s attitude.⁹⁵ The United States’ recent treaties with Japan and the Philippines only highlighted how it intended to exclude the United Kingdom from serious discussion as it pertained to the future of security in the Asia-Pacific region. As one British diplomat noted, “It is disquieting that while the Americans seem ready to fall over backward to avoid hurting Philippine or Japanese feelings, they do not seem to have a similar regard for British susceptibilities.”⁹⁶

British policymakers saw their omission from ANZUS as more than merely a political embarrassment, but rather as a challenge to their broader international interests. The British had managed to obtain agreement that Australia and New Zealand would station fighter planes on Malta and Cyprus.⁹⁷ Australia was nevertheless becoming more assertive in its requests for clarity on what Britain would in turn provide concerning ANZAM defense planning and resources.⁹⁸ This confidence reflected in part the existence of ANZUS and its associated security guarantee from the United States. Burgeoning levels of discussion between the ANZUS powers also encouraged new ideas about where to station forces globally. While still officially U.S. policy to support the dispatch of antipodean forces into the Middle East and Mediterranean in the event of a global war, discussions between U.S. service personnel and their antipodean counterparts revealed that elements within the U.S. military were keen to explore how Australia and New Zealand could increase their own commitments to Asia-Pacific security.99

It had been a longer-term objective of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Washington to encourage both Australia and New Zealand to commit additional resources to the defense of the “near north,” which included Indochina, Burma, Thailand, and Malaya.¹⁰⁰ In particular, France’s ongoing struggle to maintain its position in Indochina in the face of a Communist-led national liberation movement led some U.S. policymakers and military officials to rethink security provision in the region.¹⁰¹ Acheson’s decision to allow Australian and New Zealand representatives to discuss military matters with U.S. commanders in Honolulu helped encourage Canberra to consider more actively the prioritization of its own regional security throughout the Asia-Pacific over that of British Commonwealth responsibilities in the Middle East or Mediterranean.¹⁰²

The Australian cabinet had decided in December of the previous year to accept a definite commitment to deploy to the Middle East the first army and air force contingents raised in Australia. It nevertheless postponed informing the British government of its decision, largely due to interdepartmental wrangling concerning the terms of the commitment and the deteriorating strategic situation in Southeast Asia. Menzies believed that if French forces withdrew from the region, Thailand would soon fall to Communism. In turn, he was worried that the United Kingdom would not be able to reinforce Malaya, which would come under further Communist pressure in the event of French withdrawal from Indochina. Menzies believed that the Australian people would not permit the dispatch of Australian forces to the Middle East following the loss of Indochina, which would bring the Communist threat closer to the mainland. Statements by the United States stressing that there would be no U.S. ground forces made available in the event of a Chinese attack of Indochina only heightened Australian concerns. On a visit to Washington in May 1952, Acheson confirmed Menzies’s fears when he informed him that the U.S. would not prioritize the defense of Southeast Asia in the event of general war.¹⁰³

Australia’s ever-growing interest in Southeast Asia was a troubling element for both London and Wellington. British policymakers had always been concerned that exclusion from ANZUS would mean strategic decisions pertaining to broader Asia-Pacific security questions would occur without their participation. Prioritizing this region could undermine the United Kingdom’s position in the Middle East and Mediterranean by limiting Australia’s military contributions to the British Commonwealth. From Wellington’s perspective, they too believed that Canberra was overly concerned with Southeast Asia to the detriment of their more vital global commitments. As Webb reported to the New Zealand cabinet following the ANZUS Council meeting of August 1952, and after recent French military successes in Indochina, “The Australians were in some difficulty concerning their emphasis on the importance of South East Asia as a reason for not committing themselves in the Middle East.”104 If the above analysis was correct, namely that the danger from Southeast Asia had receded, there was less reason for Australia withholding support for the Middle East.

In response to these developments, the British government decided to intensify its lobbying of Washington, Canberra, and Wellington for membership in ANZUS from late 1952 onward. The press baron Lord Beaverbrook, with Churchill’s approval, oversaw a public relations strategy designed to win popular approval inside Australia and New Zealand for the British cause. Britain’s exclusion from ANZUS deeply upset Beaverbrook. He believed that Menzies had behaved “shamefully” in agreeing to such an exclusive security alliance with the United States. Beaverbrook’s newspapers attacked Britain’s exclusion from ANZUS and targeted Canberra’s political elite for criticism. In one broadside, Beaverbrook personally accused Casey of being “anti-British.”¹⁰⁵ Such commentary stoked criticism of the Menzies government in his own parliament as critical questions about British exclusion from ANZUS grew in number.¹⁰⁶ The Holland government endured similar attacks, which would continue for over a year, and which exacerbated tensions within the New Zealand government concerning disloyalty toward the United Kingdom.¹⁰⁷

London’s actions proved irritating to both the Menzies and Holland governments and encouraged a direct response from Canberra. Casey wrote to Eden that the personal attacks directed at him by the British press were ill-informed and unfair. As Casey reasoned, the United Kingdom’s exclusion from ANZUS was not because of an effort by the Menzies government to distance itself from the British Commonwealth. Instead, it reflected the consensus opinion of the members of ANZUS that British membership would inevitably lead to calls from France for membership, which in turn could see the ANZUS powers drawn directly into France’s imbroglio in Indochina.¹⁰⁸

British pressure was more effective against the Holland government as it forced the New Zealand prime minister to justify again to his entire cabinet why the United Kingdom had been excluded from ANZUS. During a cabinet session in September 1952, Holland, in an effort to play down suggestions that the United States had railroaded Australia and New Zealand into excluding the United Kingdom from ANZUS, emphasized that all three members of the treaty had reached this decision together.109 For the New Zealand prime minister, the entire episode was one he would have rather avoided. As Holland suggested to a close adviser, he had cause to “regret” that British exclusion from ANZUS had become a matter of “public controversy.”¹¹⁰

At this time, Canberra also tried to convince London that British membership in ANZUS was in fact unnecessary. Rather disingenuously, Casey argued that the existing ANZAM arrangements provided comprehensive avenues for Commonwealth security cooperation.¹¹¹ Yet ANZAM only involved service-led cooperation rather than political agreement to engage in action in time of war.¹¹² Casey received a terse response that noted, “We could not regard ANZAM as an alternative to United Kingdom association with ANZUS.”¹¹³ It was also around this time, in late September 1952, that Australian officials began to invoke racial arguments in favor of British exclusion from ANZUS. Following the U.S. lead, Casey wrote to Eden stressing that British membership in ANZUS would create the impression in some Asian states that this was a “white man’s pact” being established.¹¹⁴ The importance of such concerns to Australia was questionable, especially given its own internal racial policies and the limited attention such issues had previously generated. Such explanations failed to deter London.

In bilateral discussion with both Australian and New Zealand officials, the British continued to press the case for ANZUS membership.¹¹⁵ Canberra and Wellington’s patience was now being sorely tested. While Australian policymakers accepted that the British government had a legitimate basis to be disgruntled about its exclusion from ANZUS, they did not believe this to be a good enough reason to push the case with Washington. More to the point, Menzies and Casey claimed that the British government’s irritation was better explained by virtue of harm to its prestige rather than its material interests.¹¹⁶ Similar opinion had emerged in New Zealand policymaking circles.¹¹⁷

ANZUS remained extremely important for the antipodean powers. From the very origins of the treaty, the Truman administration made it clear that the treaty was to be a regional security pact only with a very specific remit and limited membership. Antipodean policymakers may not have seen ANZUS in the same terms, but the dynamics of power meant that they had to accept U.S. wishes. If Canberra and Wellington desired ANZUS to morph into a fully comprehensive security pact, then policymakers would have to pursue this ambition very carefully. British membership in ANZUS would not come before the establishment of more comprehensive strategic cooperation between New Zealand, Australia, and the U.S. Therefore, when London again requested that Canberra and Wellington reopen the issue of British observer status to ANZUS at the next ANZUS military council, scheduled for November 1952, both the Menzies and Holland governments rejected the suggestion.118

It was apparent that if the British government wanted to obtain ANZUS membership then it would have to convince the United States to change its existing policy. When British officials once again pressed their U.S. counterparts, they received further resistance. During conversations with the British government, the Truman administration continually made it known that it would not establish any permanent military machinery for wider regional defense planning, nor would it countenance dispatching military forces.¹¹⁹

As the JCS noted, however, events in the Asia-Pacific were becoming increasingly important to U.S. security: “The immediately pressing problem of the West in Asia is the containment of Soviet-dominated communism to prevent its spread into Indochina and Southeast Asia. United States assistance to Indochina will be necessary, particularly since the conquest of that area by Soviet-dominated Communists would have serious consequences throughout southeast and southern Asia and Japan.”¹²⁰

The United States would continue to support the French in their efforts in Indochina and the British in Malaya. Senior U.S. policymakers now made the connection between their own efforts in Korea, French efforts in Indochina, and British Commonwealth efforts in Malaya as part of the same struggle against Communist insurrection and perfidy throughout the Asia-Pacific.¹²¹ Important limitations on U.S. efforts in the Asia-Pacific, however, still existed. Doubts about the efficacy of intervention, alongside ongoing concerns about the costs of checking Communist expansion, served to limit military commitments to the region. In addition, under no circumstances would the United States assume responsibility for upholding wider European colonial interests in the region.¹²²

Ongoing differences between the U.S. State Department and the Joint Chiefs concerning how to fight a war in Southeast Asia, assuming that the PRC invaded Indochina, also helps explain Washington’s reluctance to make a firm commitment to a wider regional security pact. The State Department argued for a “holding type” action whereby U.S. forces would target only the approaches into Indochina. The JCS argued that the United States should target the “source” of the attack—namely, Communist China—via air assault and a full-scale naval blockade.123 The president was unable to resolve this dispute, and he appeared more concerned about the impending 1952 elections, especially the result’s impact on the United States’ long-term security.

Questions surrounding the expansion of ANZUS or the creation of a wider Pacific security pact held limited interest to the president at this time. As such, Acheson relied on existing excuses and explained that ANZUS could not be expanded as it would appear as a “White Man’s Pact” that was “cloaking some new form of Imperialism.”¹²⁴ Such an explanation was a much more convenient excuse than explaining U.S. concerns that the United Kingdom would manipulate the United States into defending British Commonwealth assets throughout the Asia-Pacific. Arguments predicated on racial justice were a fair representation of U.S. concerns and helped challenge Soviet propaganda about Western imperialism, to be sure, but they also served as a convenient tool for obscuring more pressing strategic and economic concerns.

Senior policymakers in London never believed Washington’s concerns about racial equality alone drove their decision. The British Chiefs of Staff, for instance, assumed that far less altruistic reasons governed U.S. policy: “The United States desire to keep control of Far East planning in their own hands, and their own attitude towards ANZUS is governed by that desire.”¹²⁵ Likewise, British officials complained that the U.S. argument lacked substance. Onlookers could hardly deem the addition of Britain to ANZUS, given its existing alliances with all three members, as unnatural. The United States was instead motivated by a desire to exclude Britain from Asia-Pacific security planning to ensure its own strategic and commercial interests were advanced.¹²⁶ In a perverse fashion, U.S. excuses about racial equality allowed the British government to save face. Fairness, not weakness, appeared to explain British exclusion to international onlookers, which perhaps explains why this diplomatic tool was rarely challenged publicly.

Rhetoric nevertheless had its limits, and the U.S. engaged in some subtle diplomacy to make it clear that Britain would not secure membership in ANZUS. In a further demonstration of Washington’s rigid position, U.S. officials outlined clearly that if Britain continued to press its claims for ANZUS membership, then the United States would have to reconsider its commitments to the security pact. Washington had therefore threatened to create a crisis between London, Canberra, and Wellington. The antipodean powers were aggrieved that this latest U.S.-UK spat was directly affecting their security interests. Washington immediately denied this story, but was prepared to push for its interests in an extremely stern manner with London if necessary.¹²⁷

The major obstacle to British membership in ANZUS was always the United States. Despite concerted diplomatic efforts, the rivalry between the U.S. and the UK in the region, coupled with U.S. concerns about incorporating Commonwealth commitments into ANZUS, proved irresolvable. As British officials concluded in the fall of 1952, if they were going to join ANZUS, then they would have to wait for a new administration to take over in Washington.128 Dwight D. Eisenhower’s electoral victory in November 1952 raised such hopes. Expectations that a new administration would bring with it a changed attitude to the subject of British membership in ANZUS would soon prove to be mistaken.