Foreign Relations of the United States, 1955–1957, United Nations and General International Matters, Volume XI

75. Instruction From the Department of State to Certain Diplomatic Missions¹

CA–665

Washington, July 19, 1957.

SUBJECT

• Revision of the United Nations Contribution Scale—12th Session of the United Nations General Assembly

At the 11th Session of the General Assembly it was agreed that early in the 12th Session the General Assembly would review all the factors affecting cost sharing with a view to giving new criteria to the Committee on Contributions to guide them in developing a new scale of assessments for the calendar year 1958.

In view of the interest stemming from the record made by the United States in the discussions on this item the following advance explanation of the position to be taken by the United States at the 12th Session of the General Assembly is presented.

It is requested that at your discretion you bring these views to the attention of the Government to which you are accredited and inform the Department of the reaction.

In light of the following considerations, the United States will press for a reduction in the maximum share to be assessed against the largest contributor from 33⅓ per cent to 30.00.

1. The share the United States should bear is a question of principle, not of what the United States can afford to pay. The United States position, as first stated by Senator Vandenberg in 1946, has always been that, for purposes of the regular United Nations budget, the assessment of the highest contributor is a question of what is right and wise and just as among partners in a common enterprise.

2. The United Nations has accepted this position from the very beginning in fixing the assessment of the highest contributor. In 1946, although it was estimated that relative United States capacity to pay was then 60 per cent and the Contributions Committee proposed a United States assessment of 49.89 per cent, the General Assembly, while agreeing to fix assessments in general “broadly according to capacity to pay”, fixed the assessment of the highest contributor (United States) arbitrarily at 39.89 per cent, or roughly at two-thirds of relative capacity to pay.

3. Assuming that the membership of the United Nations had remained the same and that the same arbitrary standard was applied now, as in 1946, to fixing the assessment of the highest contributor, then the United States, now said to have relative capacity to pay of 40–45 per cent, would be assessed two-thirds of that, or less than 30 per cent. Thus, despite the great increase in the relative capacity to pay of the other United Nations members, the United States, at present assessment level of 33⅓ per cent, now pays more in relation to its relative capacity than it did in 1946.

4. Moreover, United Nations membership has not remained the same. Since 1946 membership has increased from 51 to 81, an increase of more than 60 per cent. More importantly, since 1948, when the General Assembly recognized that the assessment of the highest contributor should not exceed 33⅓ per cent, membership has increased from 58 to 81, an increase of about 40 per cent.

5. Such an increase in membership, as a matter of principle and wholly without relation to capacity to pay, should be accompanied in an organization of sovereign equals by a reduction in the maximum assessment share of the regular budget to be borne by any one country.

6. When in 1948 the principle of a one-third maximum assessment on the highest contributor was recognized by the General Assembly and the United Nations had only 58 members, this meant the United States should pay twenty times its membership percentage, which was 1.72 per cent. At present in an organization of 81 members, the United States represents only 1.25 per cent of total membership, and it pays, on a 33⅓ per cent assessment basis, twenty-six times its membership percentage. This increase cannot be justified in an organization of sovereign equals, particularly where there has been a large increase in the capacity to pay of other members in relation to the United States.

7. Additional contributions to the United Nations budget of the first new members admitted since 1950 (sixteen) have been applied to the reduction of percentage contributions of all United Nations members, except the United States, which pay more than a minimum percentage. Considerations mentioned in the preceding paragraphs, plus the principle of equitable treatment for all members, dictates that the United States percentage contribution should now be reduced by application of contributions of the most recent new members.

8. The United States will further propose that the reduction in its percentage share should be accomplished by:

A. Maintaining the percentage shares to be determined for the five countries admitted to membership at the 11th Session of the General Assembly (Japan, Morocco, Tunisia, Sudan and Ghana) outside the calendar year 1957 scale of assessments;

B. Incorporating the percentage shares of the five new members into the calendar year 1958 scale of assessments and reducing the United States share in the same amount (approximately two percentage points) thus maintaining all other countries at their 1957 percentage share except as covered in point D below;

C. Readjusting the relative percentage of other countries on a capacity to pay basis to complete the United States reduction to 30 per cent. It is expected that increases in the capacity to pay of the “Soviet Bloc” countries might be large enough to make it unnecessary to increase the percentage shares of other members; and

D. The foregoing steps would be implemented taking into account the maintenance of the minimum share at .04 per cent and retaining the “Per Capita” principle.

Note: Posts which believe that the following point would cause no offense and would otherwise be appropriate may include it in addition to the foregoing:

For several years the United States Congress and the American public have been giving generous support to a number of multilateral and bilateral programs in the international field which in a variety of ways have helped to achieve the aims of the United Nations. The cost to the United States of these programs each year is many times the amount of the United States contribution to the annual budget of the United Nations, and this cost has been met willingly—with no feeling that this voluntary action was unfair or inequitable. Sentiment has already been expressed in the Congress that the United States is being unfairly treated in the United Nations on the question of the assessment scale. A continued refusal by the General Assembly to alter the scale may well encourage this sentiment. The United States would hope to see no situation develop in respect to this question which could be a factor in bringing about a negative reaction on the part of the American public toward United States support for both multilateral and bilateral programs.

For Latin American Posts:

Although the OAS contribution scale is based with some modifications on the UN scale, the proposed change in the United States share of UN contributions would have virtually no effect on the OAS contributions scale. You may so state if this question arises. If the proposed reduction in the United States share to the United Nations should prompt other questions concerning the contribution share to the OAS, the latter may be distinguished from the United Nations contribution on the basis of the difference in the facts, i.e. the new members added to the United Nations whereas the membership in the OAS has remained the same.

FYI on the Note above: In addition to the huge outlay for bilateral programs under the Mutual Security Act, U.S. contributions to a number of multilateral “voluntary” programs under the UN have been at levels considerably in excess of our “capacity to pay”. For example,

(a) UN Palestine Refugee Program—70% of total funds given by all governments, or approximately $21.5 million this year.

(b) UN Children’s Fund—55% or about $10 million for the current year.

(c) UN Technical Assistance Program—about 49% this year, or approximately $15.5 million.²

Dulles

1. Source: Department of State, Central Files, 320/7–1957. Limited Official Use; Priority. Sent to 69 posts and repeated to 7 others.

2. Department of State and USUN Files contain numerous responses to this instruction and to the proposal that it contained. The earliest responses were mixed, but generally unfavorable. Only the Italian Government apparently expressed unreserved support (telegram 405 from Rome, August 1) while The Hague, Pretoria, and Paris expressed skepticism or opposition to the U.S. proposal as either tending to adversely affect the contributions scale of all other member nations (despatch 128 from The Hague, August 16) or a few of the already most heavily burdened (despatch 343 from Paris, September 4).

   On September 12, Dulles sent instruction 2462 to 17 posts stating that no reply had been received to the “very strong interest of the United States” in the plan contained in CA–665 and requested “that you make every effort to ascertain the views of the Government to which you are accredited and inform the Department of the reaction.” Replies were received between September 17 and December 3, ranging from expressions of outright support (telegram 53 from Luxembourg, September 17, and a memorandum of conversation by John E. Fobes with Kadhif M. Khalaf, Second Secretary of the Iraqi Mission at the United Nations, September 19, 1957) to the outright opposition of such countries as India and Argentina (memorandum from Bender to Lodge, September 27, and memorandum from Wilcox to Rountree, September 26), with other member nations stating a willingness to support the U.S. plan as long as it did not affect the existing financial percentage assigned to the interested country (telegram 923 from Manila, September 9; telegram 582 from Tehran, September 19; and despatch 446 from Havana, December 3).

   The telegrams and airgrams summarized above are all ibid., Central File 320; the memorandum from Wilcox to Rountree is ibid.,IO Files: Lot 60 D 113, Memoranda, General, 1957; the memoranda by Bender and by Fobes are in USUN Files, IO, Financing.