Office of the Historian

477. Memorandum From the President’s Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Bundy) to President Johnson1

Washington, October 6, 1965, 9:30 a.m.

RE

  • Southern Rhodesia and the United Nations

I think you will want to know that with British support we are quietly urging the usefulness of a carefully phrased resolution on Southern Rhodesia in the General Assembly. This is a matter on which Goldberg, Rusk and I have consulted, and we are all in agreement. We are also acting with British encouragement. Our object is two-fold:

  • First, to give additional clarity to the fact that Smith will face very strong international opposition if he insists on UDI;
  • Second, to have our own language in the field and thus to avoid the much more inflammatory and tendentious resolutions that hot-headed Africans would prefer.

We hope that we can get friends to sponsor our moderate resolution, but it is a possibility that we would have to put it forward ourselves. I think you will want to give Goldberg tactical flexibility on this, but if you have a strong view, I know he would want to hear it. He will, of course, act under Dean Rusk’s guidance.

A copy of the draft resolution is attached.2

Mc.G. B.

Let Rusk and Goldberg handle it3

Speak to me

  1. Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, Memos to the President, McGeorge Bundy, Vol. 15. No classification marking.↩
  2. Not printed.↩
  3. This option is checked. A handwritten notation in the margin reads: “See memo to Sisco attached.” In this memorandum, Bundy informed Sisco that the President had delegated to the Secretary and Ambassador Goldberg the tactical authority to decide whether such a resolution should be sponsored by others or by the United States, and noted that the President was clearly sympathetic with the basic objective.↩