‘Oblivious Of S.-E. Asia’

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31113, 16 July 1966, Page 15

‘Oblivious Of S.-E. Asia’

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) WASHINGTON, July 15. The Australian Prime Minister, Mr Holt, told President Johnson yesterday that he had been disappointed to find Britain and other Western European countries almost oblivious to the existence of South-east Asia.

Mr Holt was speaking at a luncheon given in his honour in the State dining room of the White House before his departure for home after his second visit to Washington in two weeks. He returned to the United States after talks in London: with Mr Wilson and other: leading British officials. “In England,” he said, “If found some disappointment in I the fact that Britain, and even] all the other countries of

Western Europe, seemed to be almost oblivious to the existence of that (the South-east-Asian) area of the world, almost as if they had quite deliberately turned their backs on a large part of life and history and experience in these modern times.” Proposing Mr Holt’s health, President Johnson had recalled his speech of three nights ago in which he had called for an era of reconciliation in the Pacific area. “I said,” remarked the President, “that I believe the Pacific is the great testing ground of men’s yearning for independence and order and for a peaceful and productive life. “If we can win that test in the Pacific we may very well have won the fruits of peace for all of our fellow men in the world, and, we would hope, perhaps for all time. “But if we lose it in the Pacific we will have lost achievement and hope, perhaps for all time, too. “But we shall not lose the test, because Americans, Aus- 1

tralians, Vietnamese. New Zealanders, Koreans and our other allies will prove in the Pacific that aggression cannot succeed on any continent in any country against any people in the world in this 20th century.”