ODA files, lot 60 D 257, “US–UK Colonial Policy Talks, July 26, 1954”
Memorandum by the Deputy Director of the Office of Regional American Affairs (Jamison) to the Director of the Office of Dependent Area Affairs (Gerig)
I appreciated the opportunity to attend some of the colonial policy talks with representatives of the UK this week and should like to pass on to you one or two thoughts which have occurred to me in connection with those discussions.
With reference to the consideration of Topic 1, in which the Latin American attitude figures in such an important way, I did not gain the [Page 1403] impression that much progress was made with regard to that portion of the topic which was added by the United States, that is, “possibilities of bringing about a larger bloc of moderate opinion”. I strongly doubt that the one or two things which the British said they were doing will have any important effect on the Latin Americans. If they insist, for example, upon using diplomatic approaches with the Latin Americans to point out the similarity of their problems in the dependent areas with problems in the Latin American countries, their approaches will, in my opinion, be counterproductive. Neither do I feel that the British attitude which seems to challenge the basic motivation on the representatives of most of the governments, certainly those of Latin America, in the Fourth Committee augurs well for the development of a “larger bloc of moderate opinion”. I believe that the method likely to be most fruitful among the Latin Americans to attain that objective would be to find some way of getting those that now may fit in the moderate category to use their influence in moderating the view of others, rather than for the UK or even the United States to make direct approaches. It is for this reason that the attitude of Brazil is of very great importance, since Brazil is probably in a much better position to influence other Latin American countries than are we or the British.
Moreover, if moderate opinion is to be increased, it will have to be done on the basis of solid facts and figures which demonstrate not only the economic and social progress being made in dependent areas but also, and more important, whatever examples of progress towards self-government there may be. So long as the British (1) insist that they will not even talk in the United Nations about the important steps they may be taking to develop self-government and (2) maintain the attitude they now so obviously hold, that the motives of those even partly on the other side of the fence are suspect, there doesn’t seem to me to be much chance of increasing the number of moderates on these questions, at least among our Latin American friends.