242. Memorandum From the Assistant Secretary of State for Congressional Relations (Dutton) to the Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs (Cleveland)1
I want to comment briefly on incoming telegram #2383 from USUN concerning the meeting of the Working Group of 21 in New York [Page 535] yesterday.2The telegram indicates we are still not effectively communicating the adamancy of Congress on this problem and the fairly intractable problem we have. We still need to get across to Plimpton the urgency of our situation before his Wednesday meeting.
The following points in the telegram are particularly bothersome:
- 1.
- The next to last paragraph indicates little recognition of the importance of cutting the ONUC forces and overhead within the next several months.
- 2.
- The scale charges for the smaller countries cannot be reduced under any circumstances without payments by us in excess of 32.02% appearing to help Cuba and Albania, at least in some small amount.
- 3.
- I do not see how Plimpton can hold open the possibility of a voluntary contribution until we have gotten a Presidential decision and undertaken Congressional consultation.
Looking beyond tomorrow’s meeting, we should have a prompt report on how much in military supplies the Defense Department can advance to the UN Congo forces and the President could then direct the Pentagon to write off. After we know the dollar value of that, we will know whether we can permanently stand fast at 32.02%, have to go to 38%, or will have to hit some figure in between.
A staff member of the Foreign Relations Committee told us today that the Secretary will shortly receive a letter from Fulbright indicating the Senate at this session will not agree to any contribution in excess of the 32.02%. We will be on the lookout for this letter.