Foreign Relations of the United States, 1949, The United Nations; The Western Hemisphere, Volume II

Policy Planning Staff Files

Memorandum by the Director of the Policy Planning Staff (Kennan) to the Secretary of State

confidential

[Washington,] November 14, 1949.

Mr. Secretary: When you first spoke to me, nearly three years ago, about the idea of a Planning Staff,¹ you conceived it as one of its functions to try to stand outside of current operations and point out the directions in which we were being carried over the long term. This memo, addressed to our participation in the United Nations Assembly, is conceived in that spirit.

My comments fall into three categories, dealing respectively with the nature of the Assembly as a forum for the transaction of international business, with the use we make of that forum, and with the composition and control of our delegation in New York.

1. The Assembly as a medium for the projection of foreign policy.

Since in the Assembly it is the majority which decides, it is important that we be entirely clear what the membership consists of.

There are at present 59 members. Fourteen more are cooling their heels as applicants awaiting admission. Seven others will probably soon join that category. We must therefore look forward to an eventual membership of at least 80.

There is of course no uniformity among the members. At present, they include great states, with huge resources and responsibilities, side by side with a whole series of entities each of which is actually less in significance than any one of our big cities. There is no criterion for membership related to population, resources, trade or any of the other realities of participation in international life. The only criterion for membership is that of general formal recognition as a sovereign and independent entity (even this has been departed from in the case of the Ukraine and Byelorussia). But this criterion is largely fortuitous. The events and circumstances by which entities achieve such recognition are many and diverse, and they have—for the most part—no particular connection with the ability of a given entity to take a responsible and constructive part in international life. Here remoteness, backwardness, some now meaningless historical circumstance, or even a sort of indifferent politeness may be just as important as anything else, by way of reason for recognition.

The U.N. Assembly therefore represents, in the main, a fortuitous collection of social entities which happen at this stage in human history to enjoy a wide degree of acceptance as independent states. Such lack of uniformity in the characteristics of entities recognized by international law is of course not new or peculiar to the U.N. But the traditional forms of diplomacy, particularly as were evolved in the 17th, 18th, and 19th Centuries, provided for a high degree of flexibility in the choice of modalities and forms for international accommodation, and therefore made it possible to give practical recognition to the important differences that do exist in the contributions which states are capable of making to the life of nations.

[Here follows an assessment of the current and potential voting strength of various blocs of members of the General Assembly.]

In summary, then, the Assembly of the United Nations represents a new theater of diplomatic operations, distinguished in several important ways from the settings in which international business has traditionally been transacted. Here all questions, regardless of whose responsibility is primarily engaged and of who must bear the main burden of execution, must be decided by a majority of a body of delegates representing 59 states, with equal votes. There is here no formal recognition of the actual differences in strength, seriousness or responsibility which distinguish the various sovereign governments. Whereas in traditional diplomatic practice, the opinions of interested states were consulted and given recognition in slow, deliberate processes which left plenty of time for reflection and plenty of room for flexibility in the preparation of decisions, here decisions, when they come, are instantaneous and final and represent the voting attitudes taken at the crucial moment by the countries concerned. Everything is staked, for better or for worse, on that particular moment. Such measures of precaution as may be taken in advance to assure a favorable outcome on a particular issue must proceed through a highly complex system of contact with the delegates of dozens of other countries, most of them far removed, administratively and geographically, from their home offices.

All this involves risks and strains not known in the traditional processes of diplomacy. The questions being treated in the U.N. Assembly are only the same old problems of adjustment between diverging or conflicting state interests which have always been the subject of diplomacy. They are here removed to a new, more complicated and more hazardous theater of operations.

2. Our policy with respect to the use of the Assembly.

This brings us to question how we should utilize the Assembly. Bearing in mind the distribution of voting strength in the Assembly we should, it seems to me, be extremely careful about what matters we urge or support for inclusion on the agenda.

First of all, we should not urge inclusion of matters in which we do not feel that the current consensus among the backward area groups would be helpful and constructive, according to our own analysis of the situation. There will be questions which it will be advisable for us to see come before the Assembly, either because the attitude of the backward area majority can be expected to be helpful and constructive or because there is some special reason for spreading responsibility for decision over the world community. There will be other instances in which there will be no reason to believe that an Assembly majority decision would be helpful or constructive, and no reason why so wide a body should be asked to shoulder responsibility. In these cases, we should oppose the inclusion of the question on the agenda.

Secondly, where questions do, despite our opposition, find a place on the agenda, and where it is clear that our own analysis of the merits of the case will run counter to the reactions of the majority, we should not hesitate to stand in a minority position. It is better to be alone in being right than to be in company in being wrong. In the long run, we will have greater prestige in the international community if we preserve an uncompromising integrity of attitude in the U.N., even at the expense of taking a minority position in many matters, than we will if we try to frame or to trim our positions in such a way as to assure majority acceptance.

Thirdly, we should be careful of engaging the Assembly in the treatment of questions which are going to constitute dangerous precedents for Assembly agenda of the future. We should remember that our majority of today may well be our opposition of tomorrow, and we should refrain from taking advantage of our present customary majority in matters where we might be embarrassed if tables were to be turned on us at some future date. We must recognize, in this way, the undependable quality of the Assembly majority from the standpoint of many of our national interests.

In the fourth place, we should not, in my opinion, use the Assembly, or connive at its use, for the passage of general declamatory or hortatory resolutions which do not fix specific responsibility for action or envisage specific results. The reasons for this lie not so much in the distribution of voting power within the Assembly as in general soundness of diplomatic practice. All utterances of the government of a great state, including collective statements or resolutions with which it may associate itself, are commitments. The fewer such commitments, the better, particularly where they are of a general nature. There are very few general observations which can be made about the conduct of states which have any absolute validity at all times and in all cases. The few that might have such validity are almost invariably to be found in the realm of platitude. If this absolute validity is lacking, the chances are that the utterance in question will some day rise to haunt us in a context where it is no longer fully applicable. If, on the other hand, the utterance remains in the realm of platitude, then there is all the more reason why we should not associate ourselves with it. For it is plainly no service to the United Nations ideal to have the authority of the Assembly cheapened by the idle and rhetorical use of its power of resolution. One of the best things we could do to enhance the authority of the Assembly would be to make sure that there is no expression of the opinion of the body which is not followed, or cannot at least be reasonably expected to be followed, by real consequences in the life of nations.

A second objection to the general resolution is that it nurtures a false concept of reality. There is prevalent in the United Nations milieu an illusion that the postures assumed by the Assembly in relation to various bodies of verbiage, as registered by the voting on general resolutions, are somehow the decisive events in world affairs. This turns the work of the Assembly, which should be addressed to real things, into a sort of parliamentary shadow-boxing: a competition in the striking of attitudes, in which the stance is taken for the deed, and the realities are inferred rather than experienced. This is a contest of tableaux morts: there is a long period of preparation in relative obscurity; then the curtain is lifted; the lights go on for a brief moment; the posture of the group is recorded for posterity by the photography of voting; and whoever appears in the most graceful and impressive position has won. It is like the traditional warfare of imperial China, in which the armies were marched up and down and arrayed against each other, with victory conceded to the side that turns out to occupy the superior position at the crucial moment, the actual fighting being dispensed with as unpleasant and redundant. If the general resolutions of the Assembly were given the same practical recognition in international life, this would indeed be a refined and superior manner of settling international differences. But since this is not the case, and since the realities pursue their stubborn path regardless of the parliamentary triumphs and disasters, the result is rather to confuse the public as to the real issues and—in the long run—to lend a certain touch of the ridiculous to the Assembly itself.

3. Composition and control of our U.N. Delegation.

One needs not spend much time in our Delegation headquarters in New York² to realize that he is not in a branch office of the State Department, but in a sort of separate, pocket-edition Foreign Office, whose world of diplomacy is that of Lake Success and Flushing Meadows. It is unquestionably an American foreign office, and in so far as U.S. foreign policy, as practiced in Washington and New York, can and does flow from popular concepts about foreign policy common to our people at large, our U.N. delegation can be said to be moving in the same direction as the State Department. But where professional experience and understanding are concerned, where approach and methodology play a part, and where the problem is one of governmental leadership in the development of deeper and more subtle appreciations of foreign policy—there the connection stops, and we have two foreign offices instead of one.

The main reasons for this seem to me to be the following:

(a) The theory that our U.N. delegation represents the people directly, as well as the President and State Department; and

(b) The imperfect integration of UNA and the Delegation with the policy-conceiving and policy-developing functions of the Department.

With the considerations underlying the first of these reasons, I have no sympathy. I fail to find the faintest justification for the theory that when questions are handled in normal diplomatic forums they should be treated as an exclusively executive responsibility, but when handled in the U.N. should be looked upon as matters to which the public or Congress require some special and direct relationship through “public figures”, in addition to the regularly established relationships of government. The President is plainly charged by the Constitution with the conduct of foreign affairs. I know of no provision by which he is entitled to divest himself of any part of that responsibility—or place himself partly in the capacity of a benevolent observer with respect to a series of foreign policy problems at certain stages in their handling. This would be true even if there were some significant criterion by which questions coming before the U.N. might be distinguished from other questions of U.S. policy, from the standpoint of public interest and participation. But no such distinction exists; and it is evident that any differential treatment of questions on the agenda of U.N. bodies, from the standpoint of command relationships within our Government, must rest on a purely arbitrary basis.

I do not mean to imply here any disrespect for our present and past U.N. delegates or any lack of appreciation for the talents and the enthusiasm which they have brought to their tasks. But I consider the existing situation clearly unsatisfactory from the standpoint of the projection onto the U.N. work of the views and policies of the Secretary of State, and I do not believe that this can be remedied short of a basic decision to change over to the policy followed by most other great governments in this respect: namely, representation in the United Nations through professional government servants, imbued with the Secretary’s thoughts and ideas and animated by no other purpose than to serve as their vehicles.

With respect to the second of these two reasons, the answer lies with ourselves in this Department. We are faced, of course, with the serious fact that numbers of people who play important parts in U.N. affairs, both within the Department and in our delegation in New York, have grown up in their official duties with a different philosophy of foreign affairs than that which prevails elsewhere in the Department. In most instances, these people are devoted, imaginative and intelligent government servants, whose specific outlook derives from limitations of background and experience, particularly from an unfamiliarity with media of U.S. foreign policy other than the U.N. A portion of these deficiencies can be remedied by a closer integration of the work of UNA with major policy thinking in the Department. But the remaining portion of it will probably not be overcome until there is a considerably greater interchange of personnel than we have had in the past between the services of the Department dealing with United Nations affairs and other branches of the Department and Foreign Service.³

4. Conclusions.

Our participation thus far in the work of the United Nations has been marked by a degree of enthusiasm and application unrivalled anywhere in government service. These qualities have undoubtedly found expression in many positive and fruitful ways in the participation of our Government in U.N. activities.

On the other hand, all this has proceeded at a considerable distance, intellectually and administratively, from the remaining work of the Department of State. This in turn has led to a certain ingrown quality among the group of people concerned with U.N. affairs, and has created a situation in which it is difficult for those people to see clearly the relationships between their work and the total tasks of U.S. diplomacy. It has also caused them, I think, to take for granted, as permanent and dependable phenomena, certain factors concerning the use of the United Nations as a theater of diplomatic operations which have actually been the reflections of temporary constellations of circumstance.

I think we would not be justified in carrying the present arrangements and methods into the future just because they have led to no visible catastrophies in the past. The undependable quality of the Assembly majority to which we have thus far belonged is alone a reason why we should take steps, as soon as the present Assembly session is over, to get a much tighter and more effective rein on our whole U.N. operation. The moment we enter an era in which we begin to be consistently out-voted in the Assembly, the activities of that body will become fraught with danger for our national interests, and our participation will call for the most controlled and circumspect handling.⁴

George F. Kennan

1. Information on the establishment and terms of reference of the Policy Planning Staff is included in documentation on national security policy in Foreign Relations, 1947, volume i .
2. Mr. Kennan attended the meeting of the U.S. Delegation on November 8 at 9 a. m., at which time he was presented to the Delegation. “Mr. Kennan said that this was his first visit to the United Nations and he had only seen it in action for one day. For this reason, he was reluctant to make any comments. Obviously the United Nations practiced a different kind of diplomacy with a different set of values than that practiced in Washington or in the field. It was our task to find a common denominator between these types of diplomacy. He regarded the Assembly as an impressive and intensely interesting operation. In it, diplomacy had been taken to a new plane on which there were very interesting possibilities.” (Master Files of the Reference and Documents Section, Bureau of International Organization Affairs (cited as “IO Files”), Minutes of the 28th meeting of the U.S. Delegation, November 8, 1949, document US/A/M(Chr)/122) (In 1971 all IO files relating to General Assembly matters, 1946–1965, were transferred to the Department of State Office Lot Files as Lot 71D440.)
3. UNA itself was aware of and concerned about the problem of effecting closer integration between the U.S. Mission and the Department in matters of policy implementation. It was felt that the area of Soviet affairs and a near-lack of USUN relations with members of the Soviet delegations at New York “was a problem that needed study.…”, and proposals from within UNA itself for the assignment to a permanent position at the Mission of a Foreign Service Officer whose specialty was Soviet affairs were receiving close attention. (Files of Durward V. Sandifer, Lot 55–D429, Folder “UNA Staff Meetings, Minutes, 1949” [March 8 and May 10])

4. Mr. Kennan also forwarded to Secretary Acheson “brief comments” by Dorothy Fosdick, “which are probably a useful corrective to my views.” Miss Fosdick was a member of the Policy Planning Staff and previously had been a staff officer of some prominence in the Office of United Nations Affairs. An excerpt from a memorandum of November 15 to Mr. Kennan reads: “4. I am not sure you appreciate the immense progress that has been made in the last two years in bringing UNA work and UN Mission work within the general framework of American foreign policy. The whole Department in a very real sense is now participating in the formulation of policy for the UN and the tendency towards UNA isolation is well on the wane. Since this was your first exposure to the Mission, this fact may have escaped you. It is understood that the Delegation in New York is an instructed Delegation, and only in a very few cases have they asked for a change in their instructions (notably Spain).” (Memorandum, Fosdick to Kennan, Nov. 15, 1949, Policy Planning Staff Files, Lot 64–D563, Box 20035, Folder “United Nations 1947–1949”)

   W. Walton Butterworth, an experienced career officer and at this time Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs, commented: “I wish I could agree with paragraph numbered 4 of Dorothy Fosdick’s memorandum, but my experience is contrarywise and with your assertions. Neither I nor my principal colleagues in FE have ever had a sense that Washington had sufficient effective control over controversial matters of importance with which USUN is dealing. Aside from the mentality to which you refer, the most careful policy statements are more often than not vitiated at the last minute by a telephone message from USUN to UNA which then without more ado concurs in the recommended action on the theory of the man on the spot, etc.” (Memorandum, Butterworth to Kennan, Dec. 27, 1949, Policy Planning Staff Files, Lot 64–D563, Box 20035, Folder “United Nations 1947–1949”) (A UNA view of the problem described by Mr. Butterworth was expressed in a UNA staff meeting on May 24, 1949, in a critique of the functioning of the U.S. Delegation and advisory staff at the April–May 1949 meeting of the General Assembly: “… a difficult situation was provoked by the frequent telephone calls between officers in the Department and members of delegations, particularly ad hoc advisers [these came from the geographic offices], in which off-hand interpretations may be given on policy matters, such as the Spanish issue, causing a great deal of confusion.… Mr. Bancroft felt some method of controlling such communications was needed.” Files of Durward V. Sandifer, Lot 55–D429, Folder “UNA Staff Meetings, Minutes, 1949”.)