Declassified per Executive Order 13526, Section 3.3
NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011
TOP SECRET – Sensitive
- to military planning as required "by the situation in the area. Shortly thereafter the Australian delegation proposed the following addition to Article V: 'The Council shall set up such subsidiary machinery as may be necessary to achieve the military and other objectives of the Treaty.' Since the Australian proposal involved an open ended commitment, this Department and the Joint Chiefs of Staff opposed it and accepted the wording suggested by the Defense Representative. The Department of State agreed, and instructed the U.S. Delegation to support incorporation of this wording in Article IV."32
Secretary Dulles was able to bring about deletion of the references to periodic or regular consultation that had been introduced into the draft treaty.
- f. Treaty Longevity
The final NATO articles (11–14) are administrative, covering ratification of the treaty, the length of time it is to remain in force, provisions for review of the articles, and archival responsibilities. These are paralleled in SEATO articles IX–XI. The NATO Treaty provides for withdrawal of its members after 1969; members are to give a year's notice prior to such action. The SEATO Treaty is to remain in force indefinitely, but members also may withdraw on one year's notice.
- g. The Appended U.S. "Understanding"
Throughout the discussions at Manila the U.S. insisted that the focus of the pact be on the prevention of further communist expansion in the treaty area. When the other nations would not acquiesce to a wording of the treaty to make anti-communism its specific objective, the U.S. requested that an "understanding" be appended to the treaty. This was a U.S. unilateral statement of intent — a qualifier upon the first paragraph of Article IV., in which the members agreedthat in the event of aggression they will "act to meet the common danger in accordance with constitutional processes." The U.S. in the understanding restricts the applicability of its agreement to act, stating that only communist aggression will be recognized as warranting immediate response. In the event of other kinds of aggression, the U.S. would consult with the other member nations. Admiral Davis reported disagreement over this point at the conference:
- "All participating States except the United States supported exclusion of the word 'Communist' from the Treaty. The U.S. draft originally referred to 'Communist aggression' in the preamble and in Article IV. The chief reason advanced by the other signatories for the deletion was the desire of most of the Parties that the Treaty cover any kind of aggression in the area. Pakistan, for example, wished that the Treaty would apply to possible aggression by India. The United States position was that the United States could not properly say that any aggression in Southeast Asia would endanger its own peace and safety, and that it could accept the
