Office of the Historian

UNP files, lot 59 D 237, “Slates”

The Acting Director of the Office of united Nations Political and Security Affairs (Popper) to the Assistant Secretary of State for United Nations Affairs (Key)

[Extract]
secret
[Washington,] June 16, 1954.
  • Subject:
  • GA Presidency and SC and ECOSOC Slates

1. GA Presidency—In May we sent a cable to USUN stating that we realized the desirability of earliest possible decisions on the Presidency and other elections and the importance of timing, but that we wanted to keep our position flexible for the moment in view of the situation in Indochina and Geneva. The question arises whether we should now move ahead with respect to Wan’s possible candidacy for the Presidency. Perhaps the first move would be to ask Wan if he wants the post (To our knowledge the Thais have mentioned Wan’s interest only to the British and French). If he does, we would tell him we will be glad to vote for him, assuming he gets enough support from the members to assure his election. We would also want to inform the Dutch of this immediately.

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