301. Memorandum From Acting Secretary of State Eagleburger to President Reagan1
UN Security Council: New Falklands Resolution. The Security Council unanimously passed Resolution 5042 calling upon the Secretary General to resume his negotiations and report back to the Council within a week. The resolution was based on a tougher draft which included a 72-hour ceasefire and language which directed the sides to leave previous concessions on the table. Both provisions were opposed by us and the UK. We had pushed for just this kind of outcome in order to head off resolutions that would have interfered with the UK’s right of self-defense by ordering a ceasefire and/or would have compromised the UN’s neutrality by producing a resolution with which the British would [Page 630] not have complied. The existence of an approved resolution may also help us in our efforts to moderate the outcome of the OAS Foreign Ministers’ meeting which starts tomorrow.
[Omitted here is material unrelated to the conflict in the South Atlantic.]
- Source: Department of State, Executive Secretariat, Very Sensitive Correspondence Files of Alexander M. Haig, Jr., 1981–1982, Lot 83D288, Evening Reading—May 1982. Secret.↩
- Mistaken reference to United Nations Security Council Resolution 505 adopted unanimously on May 26. For the texts of the resolution and Kirkpatrick’s statement after its adoption, see the Department of State Bulletin, July 1982, p. 87. A summary of the Security Council debate that culminated in adoption of the resolution is in Yearbook of the United Nations, 1982, pp. 1329–1332.↩