Office of the Historian

311. Memorandum of Conversation1

Washington, October 9, 1962, 4 p.m.

SUBJECT

  • Congo

PARTICIPANTS

  • US
    • The President
    • The Secretary of State
    • Ambassador Bohlen
    • Mr. Tyler
  • France
    • Couve de Murville, Foreign Minister
    • Ambassador Alphand

The President asked for the Foreign Minister’s views and said it was now obvious that the United Nations had not been successful, and would probably have to withdraw. The Foreign Minister said that France’s position was already known, and that the French Government had been in agreement with the aims of the US Government. He said it was obvious that the secession of Katanga was essentially a question of money. He thought that the relation between the UMHK and Tshombe was a very difficult one.

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The President asked if the Foreign Minister thought there was anything further we could do. He replied that he didn’t see what could be done further. The Secretary commented there were a good many Frenchmen down in the Congo. The Foreign Minister observed that they were not under French control or they would be in jail. The French element there consisted of people like those who had tried to assassinate General de Gaulle.

The President referred to the financing of UN operations and asked what the French position was. The Foreign Minister pointed out that France had never thought that putting the UN in the Congo would work out. The President asked if he thought that things would be better now if the United Nations were not in the Congo. The Foreign Minister said he wished to say “bluntly” that he thought the original reason for going into the Congo in the first place had been to prevent the Soviet Union from moving in there. At the time the United States had overestimated the Soviet military risk (he was not speaking of subversion which was a constant danger but of the military operations by the USSR). He thought that the military risk now was nonexistent. The UN had been in the Congo two years and if it had trained, say, 15,000 Congolese troops during this time, the situation might be different today.

The Secretary observed that several French-speaking African countries would vote in favor of the decision of the ICJ. The President asked the Foreign Minister what France was going to do. The Foreign Minister replied his government would not go along for reasons of principle. It was not in favor of ascribing to the General Assembly the authority to commit member countries to the support of military operations.

  1. Source: Department of State, Central Files, 770G.00/10–962. Secret. Drafted by Tyler and approved in S on October 12 and in the White House on October 24. The source text is labeled “Part 2 of 4 Parts”; three other memoranda of conversation record discussion of different topics.↩