Gorton Reassured

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31984, 10 May 1969, Page 13

Gorton Reassured

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—CopyrigM) EDMONTON (Alberta), May 9.

The Australian Prime Minister (Mr John Gorton) flew to Canada last night after establishing a working partnership between Australia and the United States for the defence of SouthEast Asia through the 19705. The Australian leader ended his talks with new assurances from President Nixon and his senior officials that the United States regards its commitment to the A.N.Z.U.S. treaty with Australia and New Zealand as a major cornerstone of its foreign policy. Mr Gorton, anxious to test the strength of the Nixon Administration’s policy and intentions in the Pacific region in the next four years, during which Britain’s withdrawal from South-East Asia will

take place and, perhaps, the Vietnam conflict will have been 1 settled, was reported to have received solid’ assurances that United States commitments to her allies will be fully honoured. • The “Washington Post” in an editorial, summed up the result of .Mr Gorton’s visit by declaring that it had “evoked from the Nfxdn Administration, publicly and evidently in private, too, its strongest commitment to date to a firm Asian policy after Vietnam.”

The newspaper added: “With Mr Gorton,' President Nixon emphatically reaffirmed the Australia-New ZealandUnited States security treaty, which contemplates a continuing Asian balance of power. “Mr Nixon, of course, was not in a political or constitutional position to extend to Australia security guarantees beyond this inscribed in A.N.Z.U.S. But he was in a diplomatic position to return Australia’s good faith with his own, and that was evidently what was done.”