Foreign Relations of the United States, 1958–1960, Eastern Europe; Finland; Greece; Turkey, Volume X, Part 2

299. Memorandum of Conversation⁰

New York, October 4, 1960, 9:45 a.m.

SECRETARY’S DELEGATION TO THE FIFTEENTH SESSION OF THE UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY New York, October 3–7, 1960

PARTICIPANTS

• U.S.
  • The Secretary
  • G. Lewis Jones, Assistant Secretary, NEA
  • A. Guy Hope, Advisor, USDel, UNGA
• Greece
  • H.E. Mr. Evangelos
  • Averoff-Tossizza, Greek Foreign Minister

SUBJECT

• Call on the Secretary by the Foreign Minister of Greece

Foreign Minister Averoff had asked to call on the Secretary following his luncheon with Assistant Secretary Lewis Jones on October 3.¹

The Secretary thanked Mr. Averoff for his excellent short talk on October 3 in seconding the postponement of the five–power resolution on Eisenhower-Khrushchev talks.² The Foreign Minister said that the Yugoslavs were very upset with him and Popovic had spoken to him quite sharply, saying he had compromised their effort to obtain a meaningful resolution. Mr. Averoff had explained that he had stressed the open-door characteristic of President Eisenhower’s reply³ and did not believe that he should be held to account by the neutrals for his reasonable action. He commented that the Yugoslavs were most anxious to get something nailed down before Tito left New York today and that this probably explained their upset. Mr. Averoff said Popovic had not made this point to him but had said that the situation was too serious for delay. Mr. Averoff was inclined to believe that it was not a good thing to be slapping the faces of the “five personalities” involved in the resolution since they enjoyed a considerable following among the neutrals. As Popovic had pointed out to Ambassador Wadsworth, the Australian resolution⁴ gave Khrushchev a good excuse for some new propaganda explosions over the U–2 incident. The Yugoslavs had assumed, according to Averoff, that the U.S. had put the Australians up to introducing their resolution.

The Secretary said he was inclined to agree that the Australian action did give Khrushchev a propaganda opportunity. Mr. Averoff suggested that the best thing would be to amend the five–power resolution in order to save face for the personalities who had introduced it. The Secretary agreed but hoped the resolution would not emerge with a request for an Eisenhower-Khrushchev meeting. Averoff thought this would be difficult for the Yugoslavs and the other sponsors but said he would be talking with Popovic about it.

Mr. Averoff remarked that the President’s reply to the letter from the five was clear and dignified and was very helpful since it did not close the door to a future meeting. The Secretary said that Khrushchev’s reply⁵ was not at all helpful or flexible and seemed to close the door to any negotiations under acceptable terms. Mr. Averoff said the problem was how to handle the exchanges so that the West seemed to be in the right. The Secretary said that we would be doing a lot of thinking about the matter during the day and would be in touch with Mr. Averoff and our other friends about it. Averoff stressed that if the door to talks would be kept open it would help immensely. He thought the five could go along with a change of dates if there were no other substantial alterations.

The Secretary said that, apart from the present incident, he was concerned about the precedent involved. If the UN establishes a custom of attempting to persuade leaders to get together on issues, there is no telling where such a course might lead. He mentioned, for example, the complications which could arise in the case of a UN mandate for Nasser to talk to Ben-Gurion or Hussein.

Mr. Averoff commented, and the Secretary agreed, that King Hussein’s speech⁶ was very courageous and timely. Mr. Averoff thought that the courage demonstrated in his appearance would be helpful in inspiring courage on the part of some of his auditors about other matters before the Assembly.

Turning to the Chinese representation issue, Mr. Averoff said that he did not expect an answer from the Secretary but wanted to report frankly that many of our friends in the UN are not happy about the Chinese question and followed the US position only for reasons of decency and loyalty to the US. The Secretary said he realized the problem and knew that it became more difficult each year. Mr. Averoff said that he did not believe we could maintain the present position much longer. The Secretary commented that perhaps there had been some wishful thinking about Chiang dying or other changes in the situation in Formosa. He noted that Mr. Nash of New Zealand and some others had been advocating a scheme for a separate Formosa idea in the UN but the Chinese Communists had shown no interest in such a plan nor was it acceptable to the Government of the Republic of China. Mr. Averoff said that he thought something could be worked out on a “two Chinas” scheme. He said that the friends of the US had no arguments with which to counter the attacks on the Chinese representation issue. The Secretary pointed out that Communist China has been declared by the UN as an aggressor in Korea and is still continuing to remain there in defiance of the resolution, that the Chinese Communists have declared their intention of taking Formosa by force, and that perhaps even more significantly from the US point of view, the Chinese Communists had repudiated their signed agreement with us on the repatriation of nationals. We still have five Americans who are held by the Chinese Communists in violation of their signed undertaking. The Secretary said that when he was Governor of Massachusetts, he had agreed to pardon a Chinese who was serving a sentence for murder in order that the man could be repatriated to China in order to live up to our agreement on this matter. He thought there was some significance to the fact that the Chinese prisoner had preferred to continue serving his sentence rather than return to the China mainland. The Secretary said that we had scrupulously lived up to our side of the repatriation agreement. He realized fully that there existed an unnatural situation with 600 million people not recognized in the UN but that the Chinese Communists should declare their intention to stand by the provisions of the UN Charter if admitted. They had not made any such statement. Mr. Averoff agreed that such a statement was a condition precedent to CPR membership and in addition he believed the Chinese Communists should agree to guarantee the independence of Formosa.

Mr. Averoff referred to the report which he had made available to the Department through Ambassador Briggs (relating to the Bucharest meeting).⁷ He was absolutely certain of the veracity of the report of difficulties in the Communist camp, as certain as if he had been present. While he found the evidences of Sino-Soviet difficulties very interesting, he did not feel we should base our policy on an expectation of a major blow-up between the two Communist powers. He felt that the Communist leaders would never allow an open break if they could possibly help it. He felt that a real clash could come only if material considerations conflicted, for example, if the Chinese found they needed more land and pressed against Russian borders. The Secretary said he could visualize a real conflict if the Chinese Communists should decide unilaterally to attack Formosa under the present circumstances. Mr. Averoff responded that perhaps this would be another instance because unquestionably the Chinese are very bellicose and the Soviets are not.

The Secretary and the Foreign Minister agreed that Khrushchev is a most curious personality whose behavior at the UNGA had been deplorable. Mr. Averoff commented that the Africans had behaved very well. While two or three of the delegations had joined the claque for Khrushchev, it was a fine thing that the others refrained from such behavior. The Secretary agreed.

Queried by the Secretary as to his travel plans, Mr. Averoff said that he could not remain in New York long. He had to go to Paris to try to help along the Common Market talks which were not going too well. Then it was necessary for him to return to Greece where there were bothersome internal problems. The Secretary inquired whether the Greek parliament is in session. Mr. Averoff responded that it was not, but it might be necessary to call up parliament because of a scandal which is brewing. He explained that a war criminal who had been tried in Greece, then turned over to the Germans, who had released him, had accused high Greek officials, including the Prime Minister, Minister of War and Minister of Interior of collaborating with the Nazis. As far as Karamanlis is concerned, it would not be difficult to disprove charges which were being made by this war criminal and exploited by the Communists, but it was apparently going to be necessary to provoke the Communists to an open fight before parliament in order to have an opportunity to produce evidence to disprove the charges.

In response to Mr. Averoff inquiry the Secretary said he planned to stay in New York until Friday. His further movements would depend on developments.

Mr. Averoff turned briefly to the situation in Turkey, which he said disturbed him a little. His good friend Foreign Minister Sarper had told him of his meetings with Tito and Nasser in New York but had not given him any report on his hour and fifteen minute meeting with Khrushchev. The Secretary explained that Mr. Sarper had left for Turkey yesterday. Mr. Averoff said that he was sure that Sarper had not made significant commitments to any of the three. [1-1/2 lines of source text not declassified] He also expressed support for General Gursel whom he felt was determined to live up to his NATO commitments but understandably was attempting to improve Turkish relations with the Arabs which had deteriorated considerably under the previous administration. What worried Mr. Averoff was that we do not know where the Turks are going in their internal situation. He deplored the trials saying “blood is always bad”.⁸

The Secretary commented that Menderes must still have many friends. The Foreign Minister said that his information indicated there was more support among the peasants for Menderes than ever before and that he was informed Menderes would not be harmed. If the court should sentence him to death, Mr. Averoff felt confident that he would receive “grace” but he felt that some leaders would be executed.

The Foreign Minister suggested that the Secretary should ask his Eastern European specialists to make a comparison between the Albanian speech at the UN last year and in the present session. He found it interesting that the tune had changed considerably. Last year the Albanians were licking the feet of the Russians but now were much less enthusiastic and were fawning on Peiping instead. The Secretary said we had noticed that the Russians did not speak to the Albanians in the UNGA for several days. Mr. Averoff said that this development had been noted in the report on the Bucharest Conference which he had sent to the Secretary.

0. Source: Department of State, Greek Desk Files: Lot 61 D 456, United Nations. Confidential. Drafted by Hope on October 5. The meeting was held at the Waldorf Towers.
1. Jones and Averoff discussed the bond issue, Greek problems with the EEC, and Greek relations with the United Arab Republic. A memorandum of their conversation is ibid., Conference Files: Lot 64 D 559, CF 1767.
2. On September 29, the leaders of Yugoslavia, India, the United Arab Republic, Ghana, and Indonesia introduced a resolution in the General Assembly calling for a meeting between President Eisenhower and Premier Khrushchev. For text, see U.N. doc. A/4522.
3. For text of Eisenhower’s reply, see Department of State Bulletin, October 17, 1960, pp. 595–596.
4. U.N. doc. A/L.316.
5. U.N. doc. A/4532.
6. In his October 3 speech, Hussein rejected neutralism, condemned the Soviet Union’s intervention in Arab affairs, and attacked the United Arab Republic for its interference in Jordanian affairs.
7. Reference is to the June 20–25 conference of Communist Parties in Bucharest at which the Soviet and People’s Republic of China Delegations publicly disagreed about Khrushchev’s policy of “peaceful coexistence” with capitalist states.
8. Following the military coup of May 27, the Turkish military government placed 15 top leaders of the Democratic Party, including former President Bayar and former Prime Minister Menderes, on trial for corruption.