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

193. Memorandum From the Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs (Cleveland) to Secretary of State¹

Washington, December 20, 1961.

SUBJECT

• Highlights of the Sixteenth Session of the General Assembly

1. From the point of view of the United States interests, a United Nations General Assembly can be divided into two parts:

a. Constructive things we were trying to get done through the United Nations—notably by building up the UN executive.

b. Destructive moves and propagandistic debates in which our objective is to limit the damage to United States interests and UN executive functions.

2. The President’s speech on September 25, 1961, proposed four major institution-building moves. On all of them there has been real progress:

a. A new Secretary-General has been appointed, and his Office has been maintained unimpaired.

b. Disarmament talks have been got under way again, with the important addition to the scenery of a major emphasis on building international peace-keeping machinery in parallel with the dismantling of war-making capacity.

c. At President Kennedy’s suggestion, the UN has taken on a whole new function, to develop and supervise an international Outer Space program.

d. The UN Decade of Development has been proclaimed and some of the first contemplated steps—a UN-FAO Food for Peace Program and a 1962 Conference on Science and Technology for the Less Developed Areas-have been taken.

e. Financing the UN, which was not stressed in the President’s speech but is essential to the development of its executive function, has also been advanced. By appropriation of adequate funds to carry the Organization through next June, plus a UN bond issue to raise the necessary cash to pay off its deficit, are both in prospect.

3. With the notable exceptions of the Goa affair and some of the nuclear issues, the destructive potential of this Assembly was not realized. For example:

a. The Chinese Communists were farther away from admission at the end of the Assembly than they were at its beginning.

b. In debating and developing resolutions on the emotional Colonialism issue, the prevailing sentiment in the Afro-Asian group was surprisingly moderate and, indeed, often was uninterested. The Colonialism debate was the least well-attended of any of the major items on the agenda. The thorny issue of “target dates” for independence, which the British and we thought would be our major difficulty in this field, was successfully by-passed altogether.

c. On the nuclear issues, the Soviets got their comeuppance on the 50 Megaton bomb, and we did well in the propaganda battle over the nuclear tests negotiations. However, we had great difficulty with some of the subsidiary issues of great interest to the smaller countries—notably the African nuclear free zone and the various proposals to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons beyond the present nuclear powers. This issue is the successor to colonialism in emotional content in the Assembly and deserves more systematic thought than the U.S. has given it. A Committee for this has now been organized, under the Chairmanship of William C. Foster.

4. Attached is a brief statement which you or the President might want to use as a comment on the ending of the General Assembly session tomorrow or the next day.²

1. Source: Kennedy Library, National Security Files, Subjects Series, United Nations (General), 12/61 Box 310. Confidential. A December 22 covering memorandum from Cleveland to Rusk also transmitted a “Detailed Summary of Actions at the 16th GA.” Both summaries were sent to the President by Rusk on December 23 and by Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., on December 26. Rusk wrote that the summaries “clearly indicate that the UN is neither dead nor out of control and that on the matters that count the influence of the United States still prevails in the enlarged Assembly despite the one nation-one vote principle.” Schlesinger noted that although the United States did better than expected on China representation and colonialism, nuclear issues were becoming “the successor to colonialism in emotional content in the Assembly.” (Kennedy Library, National Security Files, Subjects Series, United Nations (General), 1/62–2/62, Box 311)
2. Not printed. The draft speech was entitled: “The Many Lives and Deaths of the United Nations.” It observed that at the end of the 16th General Assembly, the integrity of the Secretariat had been preserved, unanimous agreement had been reached on a forum and principles for disarmament talks and on peaceful uses of outer space, a resolution had been adopted on a Decade of Development, the “important question” formula had prevented the expulsion of the Republic of China, moderate resolutions had been passed on decolonization, and peacekeeping missions in the Middle East and the Congo had continued.