6.
These
Further East the Soviet Union had interfered in Afghanistan and South Yemen. Daoud had been friendly towards the Soviet Union but had also wanted to pursue friendly relations with his neighbours and independent policies. Therefore the Soviet Union had engineered a coup. The same thing had happened in South Yemen. In North Yemen a Soviet plot to subvert the Government had not succeeded but North Yemen was now unstable. Soviet activities were not of course confined within the borders of Afghanistan and South Yemen. countries were used as bases for Soviet interference in other countries eg Afghanistan was being used against Pakistan which faced danger of being dismembered for the second time, and South Yemen was being used to subvert North Yemen. The previous day he and Dr Owen had discussed Pakistan's withdrawal from CENTO. Soviet Union had brought great political and military pressure to bear on Pakistan and at the same time was seeking to control her economy.
The Soviet Union's aims in Pakistan had been helped by the United States' policy of attaching greater importance to India than to Pakistan.
17.
The
Mr Huang concluded his remarks by stressing the importance of seeing through the aims and intentions of the Soviet Union's global strategy and the Soviet Union's activities on the flanks of Europe. It was also important to see the dangers of that strategy and to take steps to disrupt it.
18.
Dr Owen said that he agreed with much of this analysis but he fundamentally disagreed with Mr Huang's pessimism He wished to offer a more confident view. In the first place, he did not accept that the US was on the defensive: for the first time since the Second World War the US were beginning to move on to the offensive. The same was true for Britain. Mr Huang said that US leaders, including several Fresidents in their State of the Union messages had admitted that the US had lost the position of being able to dictate to others. Dr Owen said that this was true and this was the very reason why the US was now on the offensive. The US accepted that it could not dictate to others and had learned to use the methods of international discussion and co-operation. He would like to go through Mr Huang's analysis point by point. He thought that "flank areas of Europe" was the wrong way to describe areas such as Africa and the Middle East. We must resist polarising these areas in East-West terms. Our strategy was different.
(Mr Huang interjected that in describing Africa and the Middle East as flank areas" he meant it in the sense that Soviet intention was focussed in Europe and that Africa and the Middle East were the periphery of this focus. Dr Owen said that he agreed that this was the Soviet view but it was important that we should not allow ourselves to see things in their terms.)
6.
/19.