Office of the Historian

14. Memorandum of Conversation Between the Under Secretary of State (Herter) and President Eisenhower0

Washington, December 6, 1958.

SUBJECT

  • Hungarian Resolution on the Matter of Credentials

After the NSC meeting this morning the President called me in to his office to say that he had had a talk with Cabot Lodge with respect to the Hungarian Resolution on the matter of credentials.

The President had apparently gotten the impression from Cabot that the State Department was rather lukewarm on raising the credentials issue, but that it was doing so because it thought the President felt strongly on the subject. Cabot had explained the great difficulties he thought he would have in getting the necessary two-thirds vote for such a resolution and expressed his fears as to the wisdom of raising the credentials issue.

The President just wanted to make it clear that, insofar as he was concerned, and regardless of C.D. Jackson’s exhortations, the President would not for a moment consider asking the State Department to go through with such a resolution if we ourselves were lukewarm or had doubts about it.1

C.A.H.
  1. Source: Department of State, Central Files, 711.11–EI/12–658. Confidential.↩
  2. On December 12, the U.N. General Assembly’s Credentials Committee adopted a U.S. motion by a vote of 6 to 1 (Soviet Union), with 2 abstentions, that “it take no decision regarding the credentials submitted on behalf of the representatives of Hungary.” On December 13, the Assembly, by a vote of 79 to 1, with 1 abstention, approved the Committee’s report. (Resolution 1346 (XIII))

    On December 12, the General Assembly also adopted a joint draft resolution on Hungary by a vote of 54 to 10, with 15 abstentions. (Resolution 1312 (XIII)) The resolution expressed the Assembly’s endorsement of the Special Committee’s supplementary report of July 14, 1958, denounced the executions of Imre Nagy and others and the continuing repression in Hungary, and appointed Sir Leslie Munro of New Zealand to represent the United Nations to report to member states or the General Assembly on significant developments regarding the implementation of Assembly resolutions on Hungary.

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