251. Department of State Memorandum1
SPECIAL SESSION OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY ON FINANCES
We are developing our strategy for the upcoming Special Session of the General Assembly on finances which opens on May 14. Our objective will be to get the Assembly to adopt a financial plan, satisfactory to us, which will defray the costs of the peacekeeping operations in the Congo and the Middle East for the last half of calendar year 1963. Our recommendations to this end will be forwarded to you sometime next week at which time the replies being received to our circular will have been evaluated as to support for our position that these costs should be financed at the regular budget assessment rates. We will also know more clearly what other governments plan to do to pay arrearages and buy more bonds.
As a corollary to the foregoing, we will also wish to make every effort to assure that the principles of Article 19 are applied in accordance with the Charter if our present efforts fail to get such delinquents (Argentina, Bolivia, China, Haiti, Honduras, Paraguay and United Arab Republic) to make enough of a payment to avoid the Charter sanction. Guatemala has just paid up; Cuba and Hungary are also delinquent, but we are making no approaches to either. Indeed, there may be advantage in having one or two less contentious cases come up now to set the precedent-both procedurally and substantively—in the Assembly and thereby help to reinforce our position for the future when the tougher cases (USSR, France) come within the range of Article 19.
[Page 555]There are also a number of organizational and substantive political questions on which our planning is proceeding.
1. United States Delegation
From a practical point of view, there is no doubt that our regular staff at USUN under Ambassador Stevenson, with some augmentation from the Department, can readily handle the Special Session. The key question is whether we should ask Senators Gore and Allott to join the Delegation for the duration of the Session. We see real political advantage if the Senators could be prevailed upon to participate, even on a limited basis. We will need all the Congressional support we can get in the future and their participation with the Delegation should be helpful in this regard. They may well feel that the demands on Capitol Hill preclude their participation with the Delegation. Moreover, Senator Allott might have a reservation about serving if our position allows for any cost-sharing plan other than the regular scale. I believe they should nevertheless be given the opportunity to “turn down” the offer. Assuming you agree with this approach, I would like to discuss this initially with Ambassador Stevenson, and, if he agrees, subsequently with Senator Fulbright before approaching Senators Gore and Allott. I should also like to explore as an alternative the possibility of asking two members of the Senate and House Foreign Relations and Appropriations Committees respectively as “special advisers” to the Delegation. This would be of symbolic importance and offer possibilities for education of key Congressional representatives.
2. Slates at Special Session
We have normally followed the practice of seeking to have the Assembly at any of its Special Sessions organize itself in the most expeditious and non-contentious manner. To this end, the practice has developed of electing the same officers at a Special Session as served in the previous regular session. This would mean re-electing Zafrulla Khan as President and the other officers who served last fall. Where the individuals themselves are not present, as may be the case in some instances, the chiefs of their delegations would serve. Moreover, we should seek to have the same Credentials Committee appointed as served at the Seventeenth Session (Canada, El Salvador, Greece, Guinea, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria, USSR, and United States).
3. Chinese Representation
We do not expect the Soviets to raise the Chinese representation issue in any formal way, but we will be prepared with the appropriate tactics to cope with it should it arise. We would hope the Credentials [Page 556] Committee might meet very late in the Session and send forward a perfunctory report which would be adopted in plenary without debate.
4. Hungarian Credentials
We will, of course, be confronted with a major decision regarding the question of Hungarian credentials. As you know, we are reasonably satisfied that the amnesty announced by the Hungarians is bona fide and that this represents a constructive step on their part. We also continue to believe it would be symbolically important for the Secretary-General to agree to visit Hungary some time before the opening of the Special Session. This would be interpreted as an additional step on the part of the Hungarians to accommodate themselves to United Nations opinion.
While it does not appear that the Secretary-General will be able to fit such a trip into his schedule prior to the Special Session on finances, we hope he can at least announce some time in May his intention to visit Hungary during the month of July.
The amnesty is likely to be broadly interpreted in the world as a reasonable step on the part of the Hungarians, and we can expect a further erosion of support for our position if we decide to pursue once again the “no decision” procedure at the coming Special Session. In view of the delicate considerations involved in this question-both domestic and international—it will be necessary, should we decide not to pursue the “no decision” procedure, to undertake appropriate consultation with a very few interested Congressional members and key opinion leaders among the Hungarian refugee groups in this country. I do not believe a change in our policy on Hungarian credentials will have a major impact on public opinion at home, but, nevertheless, we need to prepare the ground and our tactics carefully. In general, our feeling is that such a change should be played in the lowest possible key and that our consultations here and at the General Assembly should not have the effect of magnifying the change.
5. Kuwait
Kuwait has indicated it wishes to become a member of the United Nations at the earliest possible moment, and the way now seems clear since the USSR has apparently dropped its past opposition. We can expect, therefore, that a Security Council meeting will be held in early May to recommend approval of Kuwait’s application and that the Assembly will admit Kuwait, probably before getting substantive consideration of the item on finances. This can be done very easily under the rules, and we do not expect any major difficulties on this question.
[Page 557]6. Southern Rhodesia
As you know, a subcommittee of the Committee of 24 is expected to visit London April 22 to discuss current developments on Southern Rhodesia. We can expect pressure to increase on the United Kingdom to state categorically its unwillingness to grant independence to Southern Rhodesia as Prime Minister Field has requested. In these circumstances, we are likely to be confronted with a major campaign by the Africans and the Asians to add the Southern Rhodesian item to the agenda of the Special Session. While we will wish to forward specific recommendations in light of the results of the consultations between the United Kingdom and the subcommittee of the Committee of 24, our present tentative assessment is that, even though a two-thirds vote is required, we would probably have great difficulty preventing the inscription of this item. The United Kingdom will probably agree with our assessment that the prime focus of our efforts should be to channel the substantive consideration of the Southern Rhodesian question toward as moderate an outcome as possible rather than to expend considerable prestige on the procedural question of inscription, where the odds are very much against our winning. This, of course, does not represent any final assessment on our part, and we will wish to consult fully and closely with the United Kingdom should there be a move to add Southern Rhodesia to the Special Session’s agenda.
7. Congo
There is also the possibility of a move to add the Congo item at the Special Session. The Secretary-General, who has expressed serious reservations regarding a possible United Nations administrative umbrella over the Congolese military training program, thinks that it might be desirable to have the Special Session of the General Assembly consider this matter. He is looking for ways to absolve the Secretary-General from the requirement in General Assembly Resolution 1474 that military assistance in the Congo be given only at the request of the United Nations through the Secretary-General. He believes a resolution could be adopted which would empower the Adoula government to enter into bilateral arrangements for ANC retraining. We believe consideration by the Special General Assembly would only serve to delay the start of ANC retraining and open a needless debate on the whole Congo question which would not serve our objectives. Moreover, no such resolution of the Assembly is needed since we believe the Congolese government has the sovereign right to ask whomever it pleases to assist it in training its own forces. We are, therefore, seeking to discourage the Secretary-General from pursuing this course of action.2