Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961–1963, Volume XXV, Organization of Foreign Policy; Information Policy; United Nations; Scientific Matters

174. Memorandum Prepared in the Bureau of International Organization Affairs for President Kennedy¹

Washington, undated.

SUBJECT

• United States Strategy at the Sixteenth General Assembly

I.

On September 19, 1961, nearly every major issue of American foreign policy will be before the Sixteenth General Assembly of the United Nations.

This would be largely true even if we did not want it that way. It is all the more true because we have deliberately decided, on some very important matters, that the United Nations must be the central forum in which to pursue our objectives.

Our philosophy is well expressed in statements by the President and the Secretary of State: it is to protect and develop the “world of free choice and free cooperation”, and undermine and subvert by freedom’s contagion “the world of coercion.”

II.

United States strategy at the Sixteenth General Assembly derives from these three imperatives about the United Nations:

1. The United Nations is the only loom on which the western world and the Southern Hemisphere can “weave the fabric of common interests” so wide and so strong that it can some day contain—and then suffocate—the East-West struggle.

2. The Soviet Union wants a United Nations with a capacity limited to debate; the majority outside the communist bloc wants a United Nations able to act. Common interests are woven together through actions, not words.

3. If the United Nations is to build its capacity to act, there is no substitute for United States leadership.

Our strategy at the General Assembly is thus to exercise United States leadership with the objective of expanding the United Nations’ capacity to act in ways that will bind together the non-communist world; contain the communists if they want to play, and get along nicely without them if they don’t; and prove to the last dogmatist the proposition that “those who would not be coerced” will not, in fact, be coerced.

This is an objective which would be embraced by every member outside the Soviet bloc. It is not just the symbolic stuff of which ringing preambles are made; it is an objective pursued in actions-actions by operational international organizations. Provided the leadership is there, the fundamental condition is favorable and the objective realistic—because the United Nations Charter and the constitutions of other major international organizations are vivid expressions of the philosophy of “free choice and free cooperation.” Thus a willingness to lead is a prior decision—transcending by far the importance of the specific initiatives selected on which that leadership makes itself known.

“Leadership” of course does not usually—or even often—mean the insistent noisiness of the pitch man. What is involved is something more subtle and more effective: an activist attitude and a sense of direction, a willingness to be caught in the middle, because the middle is where power has to be exercised.

III.

The General Assembly increasingly mirrors the international climate; reflects the total policies of nations, particularly of the United States and the USSR; and provides the institutional framework within which the members pursue their respective national interests on the greatest issues of the times.

That the Sixteenth Session will meet in a climate of crisis hardly makes it unique. In 1950 it was Korea; in 1956 it was Suez and Hungary; in 1958 it was Lebanon; and last year it was the Congo. But if tension is not new to the United Nations it is likely to be unusually high this year. For Berlin, whether or not it is formally on the agenda, will provide a principal backdrop for the Assembly.

Along with this impending threat to peace and security will be the lack of progress toward resumption of disarmament negotiations and the impasse at Geneva on the cessation of nuclear weapons tests. Great pressure may be expected from the smaller powers, and particularly from the uncommitted, for reinvigorated efforts on these matters. We ourselves have already decided the United Nations is the best educational forum in which to state our case and build international support for it.

There will be strong pressure at least for full debate on Chinese representation. This and related items will be used by the Communists to attack our entire position in the Far East, the SEATO alliance, the off-shore islands, and our policy in Korea and in Laos. They will press these issues because on them they find members of the Atlantic community dangerously at odds with each other. With the exception of Tibet, we are defending, not pressing forward in East Asia.

As in several past Assemblies, there will be “colonialism” in its various guises, including the questions of Angola, Algeria, New Guinea and target dates will be a predominant problem. As in the case of China policy, the “colonialism” issue lends itself to exploitation by the USSR because the free world can sometimes be split apart on questions about which political leaders feel strongly.

There will be a number of issues relating to the needs of the less developed areas for economic and technical aid; the dominant theme will again be the demand for a capital fund directly under United Nations auspices. One way of turning this recurrent demand toward a useful and flexible system, and also achieving a better relationship between our bilateral aid and our multilateral contributions, is outlined in one of the proposed Presidential initiatives in Tab A.²

There will finally be the crisis of the United Nations itself—epitomized by the facts that success is not yet assured in the Congo; that the office of the Secretary General is sustained but not yet secure against “Troika;” that ways must be found to put United Nations finances on a more stable basis; that the Councils and the United Nations Secretariat must soon reflect the changed composition of the Organization. Overhanging the whole Assembly will be a question not yet on the agenda: what to do next year to prepare for the end of Mr. Hammarskjold’s term as Secretary-General in April 1963.

IV.

Beyond the issues of global concern are the nasty, embarrassing regional conflicts-each embarrassing to a special group of countries of which the United States is (because of its power not its wisdom) nearly always a member. Most of these issues are now outside of Europe, though the Alto Adige dispute is troublesome. The “German question”, including Berlin, is regional in geography but global in its inter-action on all other issues.

The China problem will be doubly difficult in the United Nations this year. West New Guinea is a regional conflict for which both the Dutch and Indonesians see some advantage in throwing into the United Nations—with very different ends in view. Farther north in the Pacific area, Okinawa could become an ugly symbol and the development of the United States trust territory has suddenly come to critical notice as, near the end of the colonial era, the United States is revealed to everybody’s surprise as among the last of the colonial powers.

On the Asian continent, the Laotian civil war is already deeply penetrated by major-nation power on both sides; the United Nations “presence” there is on vacation but it could still become at a later stage the middleman in the process of building in Laos something resembling a national government. There is a United Nations political presence in Cambodia too—with a refugee hat on. The actuality of indirect aggression in South Vietnam may require a more direct application of the “conscience of the world community” before we get through.

The United Nations has been “seized of” Kashmir, that stickiest leftover of the partition of British India, for more than a decade. We may be due for another seizure on that front this year. On the other side of Pakistan, the Afghans are showing signs of pressing again the ancient claim of nationhood for “Pushtoonistan.”

In the Middle East, the temporary calm has been maintained partly by the presence of the United Nations—a sometime political representative in Amman, the United Nations Truce Supervisory Organization, a massive relief program for a million Palestine refugees, and a 5,000-man United Nations Emergency Force in the Gaza Strip. But the storm is gathering, sparked by Egyptian and Iraqi ambitions, the prickly defensiveness of Israel, and the endless running sore of the Palestine refugees. The United Nations relief agency for the refugees is up in this year’s Assembly for abolition or continuation; in the resulting debate the refugees may be almost forgotten in the political clamor.

In North Africa, the Bizerte affair will still be on everybody’s mind—and still on the United Nations’ agenda, at least through the involvement of the Secretary General as mediator. Bizerte, in turn, may bring Algeria back into the United Nations, as a sign that hopes for a bilateral settlement are slimmer than ever. These two cases, plus the French boycott of UNEF and the Congo operation, raise a special problem for the West: how to use the United Nations effectively in situations where France has to be involved, if DeGaulle maintains his simple policy: “Je n’aime pas l’ONU.”

South of the Sahara, the opera bouffe of Congolese politics and the difficulty of maintaining under United Nations auspices a large and complex nation-building operation will continue to interact; the Congo may once again be a major issue in the Assembly. Angola, apartheid in South Africa, and the status of Southwest Africa will doubtless be debated again in an atmosphere enflamed by the colonial reluctance of the Portuguese and the continued intransigence of the South African nationalists. The issue of “target dates” for independence will be with us again; on this one, the British and we are concerting a new line. And just under the surface, the Secretary General is extending his capacity to act a political adviser and technical consultant to new nations on a wide range of matters on their agenda of nationhood: in Togo a Special Representative of the United Nations regularly commutes from Geneva to talk to Olympio; in Somalia an informal political adviser operates from a base as resident representative of the Technical Assistance Board; in Tanganyika, the Secretary General has just completed arrangements with Nyerere to provide a similar service. The independence of Ruanda-Urundi is being arranged now by a United Nations Commission set up at the Fifteenth Assembly; some continuing United Nations concern for internal security and governmental institution-building is inevitable after the formal grant of independence, scheduled for next year. (Soon, perhaps—hopefully not too soon—the role of the United Nations in the internal development of new nations will be defined further in General Assembly debate. Meanwhile the United Nations crops up in many parts of the newly-developing world, because there is so often no bilateral alternative.)

In Latin America the United Nations presence has been less apparent, and from the United States point of view less useful, than in other parts of the world. Where international cooperation turns out to be feasible, the inter-American system has been used; debates in the United Nations, notably in the last couple of years on Cuba, have symbolized holes in the inter-American system. But with the penetration of Soviet power into the Hemisphere, an unnoticed rule of international politics may once again be evident: when it comes to tackling substantial security problems, the weaker nations are least courageous in applying their power to nearby situations, most courageous in applying it far away. To deal with Cuba, we may eventually need a vehicle (the United Nations?) with which to apply collective power from outside as well as inside the Hemisphere.

V.

Mr. Khrushchev said on July 10 that the Soviet Union would not accept any decisions of the United Nations which the Soviets consider contrary to their interests and that he would use force to oppose such decisions if necessary. This new law in unilateralism would indicate that the general Soviet posture will be one of bellicosity rather than accommodation in the Sixteenth General Assembly. The Soviets are likely to have three principal objectives: (a) to project an image of the Soviet Union in favor of disarmament and to place the onus on the United States for failure to achieve progress in this crucial field; (b) to exploit the colonial question by every means, using as a basis the Soviet declaration of last year supporting the immediate independence of all colonies; and (c) to press its “Troika” concept across the board in a stepped-up effort to paralyze the Secretariat and to insure against any United Nations action anywhere except on Soviet terms. In this connection it is not unlikely that the Soviet Union will pursue its proposal to move United Nations Headquarters out of this country. A more detailed exposition of expected Soviet positions in the United Nations General Assembly is contained in the attached report (Tab C).³ A similar report received by the State Department a year ago proved to be an impressively accurate forecast of Soviet policy in the United Nations during the Fifteenth General Assembly.

Judging from past experience, the reaction of many of the uncommitted countries of Asia and Africa to the Soviet-created tension will be to urge the West to compromise. At the same time, the United States is in a good position on the test ban issue and should develop the wit to acquire the initiative on general disarmament; the Soviet attack on the United Nations itself is extremely unpopular; and the colonial issue is about to burn itself out. Thus if the United States, both inside and outside the United Nations, takes specific constructive initiatives and generally displays speed, flexibility and self-confidence, Soviet hostility in the United Nations can mightily assist in “weaving the fabric of common interests” between the western world and the southern hemisphere which “by reaching beyond the cold war, may determine its outcome.”

VI.

There is a truism regarding the 100-nation United Nations which is as significant today as it was in the 51, 60 and 82-nation Organization: there is no substitute for United States leadership. We can still mobilize required majorities, and we can prevent adoption of unacceptable proposals; but to do so we have to keep everlastingly at it. The luxury of sitting out every second dance is not for the leaders. The United States is still the number one power in the United Nations when it wants to be. Too often in past years, it hasn’t wanted to be enough to be fully effective.

In more specific terms our aims at the coming Assembly should be:

(a) to adopt a posture of evident reason and firmness on political and security issues, such as Berlin and disarmament, which affect our vital interests;

(b) to press for the further strengthening of the executive capacity of the United Nations;

(c) to mobilize the moderate elements in the Assembly on colonial and other issues to deflect the initiatives of the Soviet bloc and other extremists;

(d) to offset the defensive United States position on certain issues by taking constructive initiatives of our own including a Western disarmament plan, a new U.N. program for outer space, a program for the development of the United Nations capacity to act for peace and security, and a United Nations Development Authority;

(e) to exploit Soviet vulnerabilities on issues where this is possible, such as the test cessation talks, the Congo, U.N. financing, Tibet, Hungary, Soviet unwillingness to cooperate in the United Nations Outer Space Committee, and the enlargement of the Councils;

(f) to dramatize in speeches throughout the Assembly committees the advantages of open society versus closed society;

(g) To lay firmer groundwork for retention of the one Secretary General principle, to promote discreetly the idea of extending Dag Hammarskjold for another term and to bolster support for retaining the United Nations in the United States; and

(h) to press for more orderly procedures in the Assembly as a means of expediting constructive business and of recovering from the shambles made of such procedures by Khrushchev’s shoe pounding and other efforts to degrade an Assembly that must operate in a civilized manner if it is to serve effectively as a school for political responsibility.

VII.

To carry out the strategy outlined in this memorandum, the United States effort at the United Nations needs to have certain special characteristics.

• First, the President should be represented by a fully professional Delegation. On present plans, previously discussed in Washington by Ambassador Stevenson, the members of the Delegation will substantially meet this test; in future Assemblies the criterion of experience might be given even more weight than has, in the nature of things, been possible this year. Assignment of the delegates will also be important; for example, the strongest possible delegate should be assigned to the Fifth Committee which will deal with both the financing of the United Nations and with the politically explosive question of reorganizing the Secretariat.
• Second, we should assign at least two key officers, the best tacticians we have, to deal full time with the Chinese representation question.
• Third, we must step up our liaison activities during the Assembly; we made some progress at the Resumed Session in this regard. Parties and receptions must be systematically covered. African delegates must be helped with their housing problems and protected from discriminatory practices. Liaison officers from the Department’s regional Bureaus who are assigned to the Delegation must remain full time; there should be no “split terms”. Moreover, liaison officers should be sought who have had previous experience with the Delegation.
• Fourth, the United States should engage its full prestige only on issues which are really important to us. We can distinguish in resolutions between the less essential symbolism of language and reality of substance. We will have to temper our sense of legal exactitude with a politician’s feel for useful ambiguity.
• Fifth, we should be procedurally alert, to counter or at least protest strongly and consistently any unparliamentary practices within all seven committees of the Assembly and its plenary body. The Delegation was too lax on this during the first part of the Fifteenth Session. We must apply a firm hand on this if the Assembly is to be restored as a properly functioning parliamentary body. Unparliamentary behavior serves Soviet interests in the General Assembly.
• Sixth, we should lead and encourage the “fire brigade” group of moderates (Norway, Canada, Tunisia, Japan, Argentina) to develop proposals before the Soviets do, to move first and effectively and therefore channel constructively the action of the Assembly; otherwise the extremists take over and we are confronted with issues that force us to choose between holding our nose and holding our allies.

VIII.

There will be about eighty items on the agenda of the Sixteenth General Assembly. Of these, about twenty are key to us or confront us with particularly delicate decisions.

The three principal initiatives we have in mind, on which Presidential decisions would be required, are detailed in Tab A; the United States position on disarmament, which is in effect a fourth initiative, will presumably have been unveiled a few weeks before the General Assembly in the United Nations Disarmament Commission.

Commentaries on the main predictable items are contained in Tab B.⁴

1. Source: Kennedy Library, National Security Files, Subjects Series, United Nations (General), 1/61–7/61, Box 310. Secret-Confidential Without Tab C. Drafted by Cleveland and Thomas W. Wilson (IO) and Joseph J. Sisco (IO/UNP) on July 24. A July 24 covering memorandum from Cleveland to Secretary Rusk forwarded this memorandum and its attachments to the Secretary. A handwritten note on the covering memorandum reads: “For Tuesday luncheon meeting.”
2. Memorandum to the Secretary of State, “U.S. Initiatives in the Forthcoming U.N. General Assembly”; not printed.
3. Not printed.
4. Entitled “Predictable Major Issues at the 16th General Assembly”; not printed.