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

210. Letter From the Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs (Cleveland) to the Representative to the United Nations (Stevenson)¹

Washington, June 22, 1962.

SUBJECT

• The NSC Meeting on the UN

Dear Adlai:

You have in New York two excellent pieces of briefing material, both of which are in Dick Pederson’s hands. One is a series of talking points drafted here as a result of your request to me. A clean copy of this draft is attached. The other is an excellent outline drafted by Dick Pederson, entitled “U.S. Policy as Seen from New York”.²

In this letter I am making some additional suggestions, that have to do with the kind of presentation which would, it seems to me, best serve the purpose of the NSC meeting itself.

1. First, as to the general theme. The most important impression for you to leave on your audience Tuesday,³ it seems to me, is that you think of the UN as an instrument of U.S. policy.

It is a complicated instrument, of course, because it is also an instrument of the foreign policy of 103 other countries. But we are not without resources and skill to get our way where it matters.

It is also a limited instrument: if we want to defend Europe, the UN is largely irrelevant and NATO is essential. If we want to relate ourselves to the less-developed countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America, the UN is essential and NATO is irrelevant.

It is an important instrument, not only because it generates a great deal of the world’s political noise, but because it now has the capacity to act: The UN system spends $502.3 million a year, $311.5 million of which is U.S. contributions to various programs and projects. The UN employs 33,494 civilians and has 22,600 troops in the field. It has successfully intervened in eight peacekeeping situations (Greece, Indonesia, Kashmir, Korea, Suez Crisis, Lebanon, Laos, and the Congo), and has operated as the “third man” in a very large number of international disputes (current examples: Ellsworth Bunker on West New Guinea, Joseph Johnson on Palestine Refugees).

2. It is essential to make a clear distinction between what is symbolic and what is real in the UN. The General Assembly session we are just winding up contains one excellent example of each. The General Assembly has been (a) deciding the future of Ruanda-Urundi, making important executive decisions that will really affect the lives of five million Rwandans and Burundis; and it has also been (b) holding a big public protest rally on the situation in Southern Rhodesia, for which the GA has no responsibility. It is notable that the delegates are a good deal soberer on Rwanda-Urundi than they are on Southern Rhodesia.

On this point, you might use an analogy: There is a difference, in Congress, between a joint resolution on freeing the captive nations of Europe, and an executive decision to move the Marines into Eastern Europe during the Hungary revolt-which was carefully not done by the administration and not recommended to the Congress.

Throughout the field of UN affairs, it is essential to keep clearly in mind this distinction between what is talk and what is action. The newspapers do not make this distinction, most of the time—witness recent commentaries by Tom Hamilton in The Times and Roscoe Drummond in the Herald-Tribune. But most of the UN delegates make this distinction pretty clearly and it behooves responsible Americans to be clear about it.

3. I would strongly recommend that the classified nature of this discussion be exploited by regular use of incidents to illustrate general points. What I mean is that you should tell stories and name names that could not be told and named in public to help bring your points to life. Examples of the kind of thing I have in mind are:

• —reference to some African or Asian who performed as a demigod but sobered up when given the chairmanship of a committee or some other responsible task (Miss Brooks? Or hasn’t she sobered up enough to be a good example?)
• —or perhaps of the embarrassment caused to other delegations from new countries when one of their members behaves irresponsibly (Jaja Wachuku?).
• —an actual incident supporting the point that the eight neutralists at Geneva have been educated and impressed by our performance at the Geneva Disarmament Conference. (We will try to provide one.)
• —perhaps a story or two to make the point that we have some pretty good pipelines into other delegations and into international caucuses—i.e., that we have a reasonably good intelligence system in New York.
• —perhaps the now-it-can-be-told story about the behind-the-scenes negotiations leading to the election of U Thant. (I have in mind here the thought that in the National Security Council you are in a position to blow our horn on some quiet diplomatic victories which we cannot claim out loud.)
• —perhaps a reference to the frustrations inherent in the business due to the fact that we frequently cannot take credit for what we’ve done because we have to exercise leadership without appearing to lead, much less to dominate.

4. It is entirely clear that no great power, and probably no minor power either, is going to violate what it regards as its own security interests to bow to majority of the UN or even to the principles of its Charter. Khrushchev has said this in so many words. We have not, but only because we have had no need to. The differences between the U. S. and Soviet performances in the United Nations reflect the fact that UN stands for a kind of world diametrically opposed to the Soviet vision of a Communist one-world; that the U.S. normally can agree with the majority of the members and the Soviet Union normally cannot agree with the majority; and that the Charter of the UN is an accurate projection of our own basic documents on the international plane and is anathema to the Soviet Union.

5. The UN is a politico-parliamentary mechanism which operates according to procedures which are familiar to us and unfamiliar to the Soviet Union, which partly accounts for why we do as well there as we do. Personally, I am much less impressed with the Russians now than I was when I took over this job a year and a half ago. In diplomatic maneuvering they seem to me to be rigid and often clumsy; sometimes they seem not to do their homework adequately, and often they operate against their own long-range interests (as in boycotting the Security Council in 1950 and boycotting the operation—thereby excluding themselves from any influence in it or over it—in the Congo).

6. Building the UN is the world’s toughest, most complex, most delicate, most advanced task of institution building in the world. It is only seized of disputes after other forums and tactics have been exhausted. But the stake is no less than a future system of world order in which the U.S. can find long-term security in the post-colonial age of atoms and outer space. In a small way, we are learning some of the essential operational lessons that would make it possible to organize a world order if we can ever get anywhere in the disarmament negotiations.

Warmest regards,

Sincerely,

Harlan Cleveland⁴

1. Source: Kennedy Library, Cleveland Papers, NSC Meeting-Gov. Stevenson, June 26, 1962, Box 20. Confidential. A June 22 covering memorandum from Cleveland forwarded the letter and Tabs A and B to Acting Secretary Ball, with copies to Under Secretary for Political Affairs McGhee, ACDA Director Foster, and McGeorge Bundy.
2. Tabs A and B, neither printed.
3. June 26.
4. Printed from a copy that bears this typed signature.