Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952–1954, General: Economic and Political Matters, Volume I, Part 1

Key files, lot 58 D 33, “Memoranda (General) 1954”

Memorandum by the Special Assistant for Charter Review (Bloom-field)¹ to the Assistant Secretary of State for United Nations Affairs (Key)

[Washington,]August 23, 1954.

• Subject:
• The Current US Position in the UN—A Pessimistic Appraisal

The failure of Congress to appropriate funds for the UN Technical Assistance Program for 1955 necessitates an urgent reexamination of our general position in the UN. We should step back for a moment and reflect on what the overall picture adds up to in the light of our long-term national interest.

Although the 84th Congress may provide new funds for a TA contribution, the impression which the present action will convey to friend and foe alike is inescapable. If the Soviets have any sense at all they will triple their contribution at the forthcoming pledging conference and take over the program from us lock, stock and barrel. In the language of business, painfully applicable here, they will take over the tangible and intangible assets and the good will. Our act of self-mutilation may thus cost us very dearly in the scales of the Cold War.

This potential disaster—and for planning purposes we must assume the worst—requires that we check over our remaining ammunition to see what shots are left in the locker.

Ignoring for the moment our purely verbal policies, what are our current action policies toward the UN? There is only one US action policy toward the UN today of the first magnitude. In effect it is the US policy toward the UN, to which all other policy considerations are subordinated: to keep out the Chinese Communists.

There are also some secondary US action policies toward the UN, which are executed with vigor. Among them currently are these: to avoid debate on New Guinea; to prevent payment of the Administrative Tribunal Awards; to prevent creation of economic development or financing instrumentalities; to prevent conclusion of treaties in the field of human rights; to prevent election of Satellites to organization or to posts; to curtail contributions to special programs; and to avoid taking a position on one side or the other of any colonial issue.

These are illustrative. I personally agree with practically all of them, as individual propositions. But it will be seen that they have one striking feature in common: they are all completely negative. Cumulatively, they tend to give the impression that our participation in the UN is at best a holding operation, at worst a liability that we are unwilling or unable to liquidate.

Now this is clearly not so, for reasons which need no restatement here. Nor should we necessarily change any of the policies I have listed. The problem, as I see it, is to regain the offensive in the UN, which we have temporarily lost.

Although the national interest clearly demands that we make the maximum intelligent use of all available instrumentalities in waging political warfare with the Soviet system, I am not convinced that we are doing this with the UN. The UN, completely apart from its possible long-range virtues as a political and legal institution, is, in the here and now, an instrumentality with great potential for blunting the Soviet strategy, which, as laid out at the 19th Party Congress in Moscow in the fall of 1952 by Stalin and Malenkov,² is to isolate the “militaristic” United States from the non-communist world. Any ready-made opportunity which the UN offers to accumulate political strength on our side should be seized or, if it does not exist, it should be created. As it is, it is the Soviets who are exploiting the opportunities, and we who are being left behind.

The political logic of planning a counter-offensive in the UN is thus compelling, and our national interest is very badly served by policies which are based on the supposed strength of American isolationism or American parsimony. In this connection, the last two Gallup polls show overwhelming public support of the UN and so-called “internationalism”, and completely repudiate isolationism as the view of any but a very small minority.

What then can we do?

If the position on Technical Assistance can somehow be retrieved, the picture will of course improve, in the sense that we will be back where we were two months ago. If another positive and creative program can be developed which has some real content and on which we are prepared to act, the situation will be altered for the better. The atomic pool idea did seem a possible answer to this need, but almost a year has passed without action. One major difficulty is that any constructive program would cost money, thus running counter to present budgetary policies. Also, although this kind of strategy may be worth more in the Cold War than a pair of infantry divisions, the currently invidious label of “do-goodism” makes it very difficult to get a sympathetic hearing for any new non-military project.

On Technical Assistance, despite the Department’s failure to appeal directly to Senator Bridges³ at a time when it might have helped, it is really never too late when the national interest and the national reputation are at stake. In any event, an explanatory statement by the President is clearly called for by considerations of national self-respect. But as to the continuing American predicament in the UN, some fresh, hard and imaginative thinking is in order. I don’t think we in UNA have the time or the objectivity to do the sort of overall planning needed. Perhaps the Policy Planning Staff could turn their attention to this instrument of diplomacy, which they have consistently undervalued but have never really studied. They just might come up with answers which could command top level confidence. I think they should at least give it a try.

1. Lincoln P. Bloomfield.
2. Georgiy Malenkov, Deputy Chairman of the Soviet Council of Ministers, 1946–1953.
3. Styles Bridges (R.–N.H.), Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee.