Office of the Historian

331. Memorandum of Conversation0

Washington, September 30, 1962.

SUBJECT

  • Southern Rhodesia

PARTICIPANTS

  • US
    • The President
    • The Secretary of State
    • Under Secretary Ball
    • Ambassador Bruce
  • UK
    • Lord Home, Foreign Secretary
    • Sir David Ormsby Gore, Ambassador to the US

The gist of what Lord Home had to say was that it was impossible for the UK to do anything with regard to Southern Rhodesia until after the elections in March 1963. It was UK policy to push forward with a broad educational program with the hope that it might be possible for the UK to get rid of Southern Rhodesia in five years or so. This was very much the desire of Her Majesty’s Government. After the elections Prime Minister Whitehead would undertake some forward-looking projects relating to the enfranchisement of the population. Nothing should be done to make Whitehead’s task more difficult, particularly at this time, since the only alternative to Whitehead was apartheid.1

  1. Source: Department of State, Central Files, 745C.00/9-3062. Confidential. Drafted by Tyler, cleared in U, and approved in the White House on October 8. Separate memoranda of conversation were prepared on Cuba and Congo.↩
  2. On September 29, Acting Secretary Ball sent a memorandum to President Kennedy suggesting the President indicate to Lord Home that the United States recognized that Southern Rhodesia was a problem for the United Kingdom and did not propose to tell them what to do about it. Predicting that the United Kingdom would come under attack by the Afro-Asian majority during the U.N. General Assembly session, however, Ball warned that he saw a situation developing where it would be increasingly difficult to support the United Kingdom effectively during the U.N. debates on this issue. He noted that the United States would, of course, do everything possible to avoid embarrassing the British. (Ibid., 745C.00/9-2962)↩