Disseni from a Friend

In the week when the British announced their revolutionary new defense posture, Australia decided to pattern its fighting equipment, in size and design, after the U.S. instead of Britain. "In the event of global war," said Prime Minister Robert Gordon Menzies, "it would be difficult for the U.K. to maintain a supply line to Southeast Asia, though the U.S. undoubtedly could do so. Although Australia is wholeheartedly a British nation, this policy is not heresy--it merely recognizes the facts of war."

His nation remains a partner of both Britain and the U.S. in SEATO. But Menzies, who last week set an Australian record in office (seven years and 106 days as Prime Minister), is not happy over U.S. policy in the Middle East, or what he regards as an American overdependence on the U.N.

He told undergraduates of Melbourne University: "I am still begging my friends in the U.S.--because it is a great country, a marvelous country, a generous country, but not always as understanding in these matters as one would like--to understand that it is not a foreign policy to say we will take this to the United Nations. Every great power must get to understand that if it goes to the United Nations it must go with its own ideas hammered out . . . that means that you determine, though you may not announce, your own policy before you take it into this community of nations. Otherwise we shall have international affairs dominated by numbers. I much prefer to have them dominated by ideas.''

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