Office of the Historian

82. Memorandum From the Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs (Wilcox) to the Secretary of State1

Washington, September 13, 1957.

SUBJECT

  • Suggestions Regarding Your GA Speech

IO has several suggestions regarding your speech before the General Assembly which we hope help to give added substance to it.

Disarmament:

It was agreed in the meeting in your office this morning that our support for the Four-Power proposals would be stated and reference would be made to the resolution we intend to table. Assuming it will not be possible to get final agreement on the text of the resolution with the UK, France, Canada, Japan and several others, a paragraph along the following lines is suggested:

“The United States stands squarely behind the four-power proposals submitted to the Disarmament Commission Subcommittee on August 29.

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“The United States, in concert with other members of this Assembly, will soon submit a resolution to this body embodying the essential principles of four-power proposals. These are reasonable and practicable proposals which we hope all members of the United Nations will support, including the Soviet Union.”

Middle East:

We believe a firm restatement of your August 1955 speech along the following lines will help to give your speech a more constructive cast:

“The United States stands ready to make its contribution to the settlement of this important issue provided there is willingness by those principally concerned to make mutual efforts and to take necessary first steps. We stand ready, as friends of both the Israelis and Arabs, to participate substantially in an international loan to enable Israel to pay compensation which is due and which would enable many of the refugees to find a better way of life for themselves. We stand ready to contribute to the realization of water development and irrigation projects which would facilitate the resettlement of refugees. We are still prepared to consider sympathetically possible security guarantees, provided other related problems are solved, under the sponsorship of the United Nations to prevent or thwart any effort by either side to alter by force the boundaries between Israel and its Arab neighbors. We continue to favor a United Nations review at the appropriate time of the status of Jerusalem.

“These things are possible only if the spirit of conciliation prevails. This is our renewed plea—that the spirit of conciliation will soon develop to make possible a renewed effort on these serious issues of the Middle East.”2

  1. Source: Department of State,IO Files: Lot 60 D 113, 12th GA Session. Confidential. Drafted by Sisco.↩

  2. Secretary Dulles delivered his speech entitled “Major Issues Before the United Nations” to the Twelfth Session of the General Assembly on September 19; for text, see Department of State Bulletin, October 7, 1957, pp. 555-559.

    Tosec 22 to New York, September 21, summarized the initial foreign reaction to the Secretary’s speech. On October 4, Hugh S. Cumming, Jr., Special Assistant to the Secretary of State for Intelligence, sent to Secretary Dulles an 11-page summary of further foreign reactions. (Department of State, Central Files, 320/10-457)

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