Office of the Historian

UNP files, lot 59 D 237, “Slates”

The United States Representative at the United Nations (Lodge) to the Assistant Secretary of State for United Nations Affairs (Key)

confidential
New York, April 22, 1954.

Dear Dave: Your undated letter1 concerning the candidacy of Dr. Van Kleffens for the Presidency of the Ninth Session of the General Assembly strikes me as being quite appropriate.

[Page 533]

I have discussed this matter with my staff and they agree that Van Kleffens would be a good man and that, in order to discourage other candidacies, it would be desirable to make our views well known in advance.

My only concern is that we should not publicize our position too widely too far in advance. We should tell the Dutch and I should like to do that here in order to get the maximum advantage out of it. Thereafter we could judicially leak our position to others as circumstances indicate.

Sincerely yours,

Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr.
  1. Presumably Key’s letter of Apr. 20, p. 531.↩