383. Letter From Prime Minister Macmillan to President Eisenhower0
Dear Friend: I was very shocked to hear this morning that Chris Herter has told Harold Caccia that you have decided to vote in favour of the Afro-Asian resolution on Colonialism now before the United Nations Assembly.1 I really must ask you to think about this again. In speaking to the Ambassador, Chris himself described the declaration as a nauseating document.2 It is quite true that he added that your Representative proposed to comment adversely on each paragraph on very much the same lines as we propose to do. I therefore do not see how you get credit in voting for a resolution as a whole, each part of which you have condemned. We are making a tremendous effort by our colonial [Page 876] policy to get peaceful development in Africa and to keep communism out. This vote on behalf of the American people, if it is given, will have a most discouraging effect upon all our people here and overseas who are working so hard for progress. Do let us stand together, at least on a decision to abstain, and thus dissociate ourselves from a resolution which has no connection with reality.
With warm regard,
As ever,
- Source: Eisenhower Library, Staff Secretary Records, International Series. Secret.↩
- On November 28, 43 Asian and African countries sponsored a draft resolution which stated the “necessity of bringing to a speedy and unconditional end colonialism in all its forms and manifestations.”↩
- No record of this conversation has been found in Department of State files.↩
- Printed from a copy that bears this typed signature.↩