Office of the Historian

99. Letter From the Representative at the United Nations (Lodge) to the President1

New York December 19, 1957.

Dear Mr. President: The Twelfth General Assembly of the United Nations recently adjourned and I thought you might be interested in a list of its main accomplishments from a U.S. viewpoint, as follows: [Page 260]

  • —Stripping away the sham of the Soviet war-scare that the U.S. was masterminding a threat to the security of Syria. The communist resolution was not even brought to a vote—the first time in U.N. history such a thing had happened.
  • —Reduction in the share of the U.N. cost which the U.S. pays from 33⅓ per cent to 32½ and later to 30 per cent.
  • —Overwhelming endorsement of our disarmament program—to which I was glad to see you allude in Paris.2
  • —Approval of the new proposal by the U.S. for a $100,000,000 Special Projects fund for economic aid under U.N. auspices. This provides a way to strengthen underdeveloped countries against subversion from abroad whereby we get considerably more for our money than in the usual way. Already Egyptian Foreign Minister Fawzi has asked that this fund be used to create a central bank which (using Arab funds) could serve a proposed Arab economic union. Hammarskjold thinks this might lead to a radical change in the Arab approach to the Palestine question and to a true regional organization.
  • —Algeria and Cyprus dealt with to the satisfaction (confidentially expressed) of the parties.

All these things were done in the midst of the Sputnik Blitz. We (the U.S.) have never had a better year. Thank you for your leadership and support.3

With warm and respectful regard,

Faithfully yours,

Cabot L.
  1. Source: Eisenhower Library, Whitman File, Administrative Series. Confidential. On the margin of the source text, President Eisenhower wrote: “Thanks to him. A good letter! D.”↩
  2. Reference is to the statement by President Eisenhower at Paris, December 16; for text, see Department of State Bulletin, January 6, 1958, pp. 6–8.↩

  3. Lodge sent an identical letter to Dulles with the addition of the following two paragraphs:

    “I have written the above to the President, thinking he (and you) might like a little good news.

    “To you let me add that, in addition to Sputnik, Wadsworth was out at the start and Barco was sick in the middle. The fact that your guidance was, as usual, wise and prompt was a decisive and indispensable factor. You deserve a big share of credit for the success achieved.” (Department of State, Central Files, 320/12–1957)

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