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

211. Summary Record of the 500th Meeting of the National Security Council¹

Washington, June 26, 1962, 10:30 a.m.

Ambassador Stevenson read the attached paper, as marked.²

In response to a request by the President, Ambassador Stevenson discussed in general the major issues which will arise in the 17th General Assembly of the UN, which begins September 19th. He predicted a long and different session which would deal with some 90 issues. Among the problems which will have to be faced are:

a. The Latin American caucus is breaking up. We can no longer count on their voting as a body. Dissidents are Brazil, Mexico, Bolivia and Chile. The major cause of the breakup is differences over Cuba.

b. The African vote is increasing in strength, but the problem which this creates is not much worse than we faced last year.

c. The colonial issue will become more difficult this year because the areas under discussion now are the white settler areas involving the UK and Portugal.

The President complimented Ambassador Stevenson on his presentation and suggested that a transcript of his remarks be circulated to the Council members. He asked Ambassador Stevenson to discuss the problems of Chinese Representation.

Ambassador Stevenson replied that if the Chinese Communists continue the strident tone of their public statements, and if Sino-Soviet differences remain the same, the representation issue will be less difficult this year than last. He said that Chiang’s invasion statements were laughed at in New York and asked how we could control such statements in order to avoid the embarrassment which they cause us. In his view, the Chinese Communist buildup was provoked in part by the fear of invasion, but it might be related to local unrest on the mainland. He predicted that a Soviet resolution on Chinese representation would be soundly defeated, but he anticipated serious trouble for us if the Russians asked only for the admission of the Chinese Communists and not for the expulsion of the Chinese Nationalists.

In response to the President’s question as to how he should answer press queries with respect to our policy toward Quemoy and Matsu, Ambassador Stevenson said any answer would be difficult prior to the receipt of a report from Ambassador Kirk. He wondered whether Chiang was losing control of his government, and he felt that we should make clear that the U.S. would not support an invasion of the mainland. He admitted that he would like to say we are leaving the islands, but he fully recognizes that we cannot so state. He felt that all that could be said was that the U.S. supports its treaty commitment to defend Formosa, and that this commitment does not involve support of a mainland invasion.

The President commented on the number of troublesome problems which are dealt with in the UN. He expressed his desire to be certain that the White House is closely coordinated with the UN Mission in New York and asked whether the White House was receiving adequate intelligence material from the UN Mission.

Ambassador Stevenson said the Mission was filing thousands of words of intelligence daily to Washington. There is nothing wrong with the reporting, but he believed that if there were more officers assigned to the Mission, it would be possible to do more interpretive reporting, which he felt would be of great value to Washington. He indicated that the Mission’s relations with the Department of Defense were satisfactory and cited the long service of Admiral Wellborn on the UN Military Staff Committee. His link on disarmament matters is William Foster. He felt that the tie to State Department could be improved. He acknowledged that there were some inadequacies in information furnished and he promised to pay more attention to improving this situation. He felt that more information to the White House could be provided and he felt that direct reporting could be handled by summaries of Mission actions.

In response to a question by Mr. Bundy about the debate on outer space in the UN, Ambassador Stevenson predicted that there will be a sizeable amount of emotional discussion of ways of avoiding the use of outer space for military purposes. He said we now lead in the use of space for peaceful purposes, but we are criticized for proposing high altitude nuclear tests. He referred to public statements indicating that we are moving toward the military use of outer space and suggested that such statements should be related to the President’s speech last fall.

Mr. Bundy said we did have a military program in space, but this is a peaceful program. He said that many people think that any military program is a violation of the principles stated by the President in his speech. He said we need to do a considerable amount of educational work in order to make clear that military uses of outer space were peaceful uses and not a contradiction of the President’s policy.

Ambassador Stevenson agreed and suggested that a group be formed to undertake this educational work. He suggested that we make our views clear to the British.

Mr. Cleveland said there was considerable confusion on this subject. He noted that we do not say that space was to be reserved for peaceful uses only. He then said many had not accepted the analogy of outer space being the same as the use of the high seas by military ships on peaceful missions.

Mr. Bundy referred to the questions of weapons of mass destruction in outer space and the problem of inspecting outer space.

Ambassador Stevenson said that we did not contemplate the use of force in space, but we must continue to discuss the weapons problem in outer space in the Geneva disarmament talks. He hoped that it would be possible to keep this subject from being discussed by the General Assembly.

Mr. Foster said we could keep the actual negotiations on the subject in Geneva, even though the Geneva talks were recessed, but we could not prevent speeches from being made at the UN.

Ambassador Stevenson resumed his discussion of General Assembly problems:

a. Nuclear testing, ban-the-bomb resolutions, and efforts to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

b. Colonialism.

c. Denuclearized shots. (The President’s view was that if the countries in a proposed zone agree to denuclearization, we cannot vote against their action.)

d. Palestine. (The work of Joseph Johnson on the refugee problem would be helpful this session.)

e. Election of a Secretary General. (U Thant may accept again. His views may be clearer after he visits Moscow in July.)

f. Integrity of the UN Secretariat. (Soviet attacks will continue. The Africans are trying to use population figures as the criteria for representation on commissions in UN business.)

g. Long-term UN financing. (The importance of the bond issue is clear.)

h. The decade of development.

i. World trade. (The Common Market is viewed with concern by some UN members, as was expressed in the conference of 30 non-aligned states in Cairo. The USSR proposal for a world trade conference may also be troublesome.)

j. Cold war items. (These items are becoming unpopular and the question arises as to whether we should continue to press them. The main one, Hungary, is difficult because we do not know how to abandon the issue. The effort last year to resolve the problem by having the Secretary General visit Hungary at the time the Hungarians granted amnesty to their political prisoners did not work out. The Tibet issue is one that we are not pushing. The Korea issue is ours, but we may attempt to keep it out of discussion this session.)

k. Finance problems. (U Thant is deeply concerned about the immediate financial situation. He is cutting costs of the military in the Congo, but he fears that if the Congo situation is not resolved promptly, military units will be withdrawn and some states now committed to buy UN bonds will not fulfill their pledges.)

There followed a discussion of current plans to bring agreement in the Congo. The President made clear his view that we must move in concert with the British and the Belgians and that the U.S. should make no commitment to use force in the Congo until there had been further discussion of any such proposal at the White House.

The President concluded the meeting by again expressing his appreciation to Ambassador Stevenson. He mentioned again that the closest possible liaison should be maintained among State, Defense, the White House and the UN Mission in New York.

1. Source: Kennedy Library, National Security Files, Meeting and Memoranda Series, NSC Meetings, 1962, No. 500, 6/26/62, Box 313. Confidential. No drafting information appears on the document. Another record of this meeting, prepared by McCone, is in the Central Intelligence Agency, DCI (McCone) Files, Job 80–B01285A, SCI Meetings with the President, Box 6.
2. Not found.