396.1 GE/6–554: Telegram
Dulles–Hammarskjold Meeting, June 2, 1954: The Secretary of State to the United States Delegation 1
Tosec 354. Following is summary of conversation between Secretary-General Hammarskjold and Secretary June second:
“After exchange of courtesies, etc., Mr. Hammarskjold mentioned pending Thai application. He said he was afraid result of this might be to reduce chance of success at Geneva. He said while Thai application did not necessarily involve any agreement about Indochina matter being discussed at UN, the Russians probably would feel called upon to cover the entire territory, and that this might precipitate chain of events which might end up with certain duplication of Geneva talks.
I said that ‘success’ at Geneva seemed to me to involve something more than merely getting an agreement but involved getting the right kind of agreement. That, I thought, would be impossible unless French had some alternative to complete surrender and US was trying to provide that. One of preconditions to any contingent US action would be some participation in area by UN. Also it was important from standpoint of getting MSA appropriations. We had followed the course which seemed to us least likely to involve Geneva. I did not see how the Russians could very well make this reason for breaking off at Geneva if only reason why UN talks covered Indochina was because Russians themselves brought that element in.
Hammarskjold then spoke of possible UN Assembly action following prospective Soviet veto in SC. He said he doubted whether we could get two-thirds vote, or certainly not more than bare two-thirds vote, if matter came up while Geneva was still offering some hope. I [Page 1013] said I thought we could decide on what to do about Assembly after SC dealt with matter, and we did not need to make any firm decision at this time.”
- Drafted by Popper of UNA/UNP. Repeated to USUN as telegram 622.↩