173. Memorandum From the President’s Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Bundy) to Secretary of State Rusk1
The President has more than once mentioned his concern over general planning for the UN session this fall. He is eager to have time to look at the major issues ahead of time, in the hope that we may have a well worked out U.S. position on as many as possible, always recognizing that in a forum of this sort unexpected and urgent questions are sure to arise.
While many of the questions at issue have interdepartmental ramifications, the orchestration of a UN session is peculiarly a task for the Department of State. May I therefore ask if you will make recommendations to the President with respect to the ways and means of working out our basic UN position? One thing which I venture to suggest is that you and the President and Ambassador Stevenson may wish to have a long and careful discussion of these matters at some stage which follows after preliminary planning and analysis, but before the hardening of expert positions.