320/9–1752
Memorandum by the Ambassador at Large (Jessup)
- Subject:
- Study of Arab-Asian Cases in the General Assembly
At the meeting in the Secretary’s office today to discuss the outline on the study of the Arab-Asian cases in the General Assembly1 the Secretary made the following comments.
[Page 47]He said of course in the general consideration of the problem we must have Egypt and Iran in mind and not limit ourselves to the cases in the General Assembly.
Before we get to decide technical problems in the General Assembly with differing views coming up to him from the several offices (which it is natural they should have) he would like to try to have everyone who has responsibility in these matters think where our interests are and where we are headed. It may be that the question is unanswerable in spite of the best thinking we can put on it. If that is so, we should know that this is the fact. The kind of study he had in mind might, however, bring out some guide lines. There are very many things to be borne in mind and the difficulty is to have all of these considerations in the mind of the same man at the same time. One person may, for instance, bring up the question of the effect of the developments in the election campaign while another mentions the effects inside Tunisia. If you reach a decision in principle and forget one of the important elements you have to reconsider your decision. We need to see where we stand in this whole struggle of the people inspired by the nationalist wave on the one hand and including in some cases the politicians who manipulate the movement and on the other hand the position of the Europeans who in some cases have been holding on too long. We need to know whether our allies are on the skids and we need to know whether we can really get stability in the Middle East. It needs to be thought of generally. On the other hand, you must have the impingement of detail on broad statements so that the generalizations can be tested.
We need to know whether the UN can actually help in any of these situations or whether it can affect them in any way. If it can’t and we are merely faced with a mess we ought to have that in mind.
Various criticisms were voiced by the participants of the complexity of the paper work called for but it was generally agreed to go ahead and try it out. The Secretary said that he was particularly interested in the points under heading II and suggested that everyone might take a whack at them.
I suggested that information under various headings could be fed in piecemeal and that much of it could be based on papers already in existence such as the NSC Senior Staff study on North Africa.2
The Secretary suggested we should have something to discuss with him next Tuesday.