84. Letter From the Director of the Office of United Nations Political and Security Affairs (Adams) to the Officer in Charge of United Nations Political Affairs (Sisco), at New York1
Dear Joe: In response to your telephone request this morning, I am pouching you herewith the papers pertaining to the idea of a Permanent UN Force.2 You will note that the paper was approved by the Secretary “as a basis for consultation with the Department of Defense with the objective of arriving at a United States Government position”. No such position has yet been arrived at, and all of the enclosed papers should be regarded as informal working papers for internal use only. Our conversations with Defense will continue, of course, with a view to formulating such a position in order that it may then be submitted to Ambassador Lodge for his consideration [Page 233] of the question of timing. Meanwhile, the possible future use of such ideas as may develop out of the conversations with Defense may have been overtaken and altered by the decision already taken by the Secretary General to establish a committee within the Secretariat to study the possible bases for a Permanent UN Force. You know, of course, that Dick Pedersen and I were told by Ralph Bunche that the Secretary General thinks that the General Assembly should not undertake any initiative with respect to a Permanent UN Force at this session, but should instead turn its attention to the financing of the existing UNEF.
Any ideas occurring to you in the Mission will make useful additions to the discussions with Defense here.
Sincerely yours,
- Source: USUN Files, IO, Armed Forces. Confidential. A notation on the source text indicates that Sisco was at New York as a member of the Delegation to the Twelfth Session of the U.N. General Assembly.↩
- A note on the source text indicates that these included Document 77 and the enclosure to Document 79.↩