578. Minutes of the Second Meeting of the Delegation to the General Assembly, Two Park Avenue, New York, November 15, 1956, 9:30 a.m.1
[Here follows discussion of the agenda for the current General Assembly session and the situation in Hungary.]
Mr. Barco then took the floor. Since the Delegation was aware of the facts as carried in the papers, Mr. Barco confined his remarks to outlining the broad issues as we saw them. As of this morning, the Secretary General had reached agreement with France, the UK and Egypt, and the Secretary General would go in with the first contingent of the UN force, that is, with the Scandinavians and Colombians.2 In his aide-mémoire the Secretary General had outlined the circumstances and terms of reference for the withdrawal and pointed up the U.N. Force’s purpose—to deal with the problems referred to in the GA resolution. Both sides had accepted this interpretation. The aide-memoire also said that the withdrawal was not contingent on the setting up of United Nations Forces. The UK and French reluctantly accepted this last condition.
Mr. Barco emphasized that withdrawal is the big question. The British-French-Israeli position is that they must judge whether the character of the UN force is sufficient. But did this mean that they wanted the UN force to be the same size as their own? Mr. Barco [Page 1133] pointed out that in the opinion of the British, French and Israelis, having such a force would be the greatest source of bargaining power. On the other hand, the Egyptians regarded the presence of the UN force in Egypt as being there with Egyptian permission. All other forces in the area were enemy occupation forces. The Egyptians, said Mr. Barco, would resist any UK-French flavor in the UN force. The UK and French had told the Secretary General they would agree to withdraw one battalion each. Mr. Barco emphasized that that information was only for those in the meeting and that it was Secret. Mr. Barco went on to reveal that the Israelis were saying that the United Nations forces should occupy the Sinai peninsula, and the islands in the Gulf of Aqaba. The issue as the Israelis saw it was whether the UN force could press the Arabs to a peace settlement. They had not disclosed their stand on the Gaza Strip and the only information we had was Ben Gurion’s quotations in the press. Mr. Barco summed up the issues by asking whether the United Nations Force can satisfy all the parties that the force is doing what they want done. The UK and France considered the matter vital to their Middle East position. Was it possible for them to achieve their aims in this way.
[Here follows discussion of the United Nations role in regard to Hungary.]
Returning to the Palestine question, Mr. Lodge said that he had, in the last hour and a half, talked with the Secretary General, and with the British and French Delegations and found the positions of the latter extreme. They wanted UN Force to carry out all their objectives; they wanted the Egyptian consent on the dotted line—but that could not be done according to Mr. Lodge. The United Nations Force’s mission was to prevent war in the area. If the UK and French point-of-view were carried to its logical end, the Egyptians would balk. Indeed these were “very anxious days”, said Mr. Lodge.
[Here follows discussion of the sale of food to Hungary.]
Senator Humphrey then turned to corridor talk on the subject of the terms that Cairo had set down for the entry of the UN Force. The Senator was sympathetic with the UK-French view about the size of the force. Nasser was a threat and the Senator was not in favor of building up this “two-bit dictator”. There would be less chance of Soviet action in the area if the United Nations Force were there in adequate strength. These were forces that only stopped shooting; they settled nothing. We must create conditions for negotiation. We should not make a fire department out of the UN Force. Its primary mission was to seal off the areas of hostility. The Senator had a question: “What are the UN Forces going to do? Are the UN Forces adequate to insist on a settlement?”
[Page 1134]Mr. Barco interpolated that the Secretary General’s intention was to carry out the General Assembly resolutions, namely that there would be no unilateral decision regarding the withdrawal of the UN Force. It would be a matter of negotiation at the time. The US attitude was that with the UN Force asking for consent to come in, we could not present this Force as equivalent to the UK-French Force in size. It would appear as an occupation force. Our approach was to get started on the UN Force and build it up. From now on the character of the force would be a matter of negotiation.
[Here follows discussion of the sale of food to the current Hungarian Government.]
Senator Knowland returned to the subject of the situation in the Middle East, agreeing that the UN should not let Nasser, on the one hand, or the British-French and Israelis turn this UN Force into its own creature. Senator Humphrey felt that the United Nations must not become an accomplice to an aggression. He did not believe that Nasser had been exactly “an eagle scout”. Senator Humphrey made the point that he assumed that the reference to military goods in the UN resolution also included volunteers.
Mr. Lodge told the Delegation that it was the US approach to have the UN Force ease itself in, get itself established and build up its strength. Senator Humphrey thought it was important that we know where we were going, what our objective was. He would hate to think that we were going in just piece-meal. Mr. Lodge cited President Eisenhower’s policy that we must find a basic settlement in the Middle East. The President from the very first day had emphasized that it would be tragic if we went through this upheaval only to find ourselves back where we were at the beginning. Mr. Lodge said that next Monday or Tuesday3 he hoped we could go ahead with the two resolutions on Palestine and the Suez Canal. The Secretary General had asked us to hold off until he got back from Cairo.
The meeting adjourned at 10:15.
- Source: Department of State, IO Files. Secret. Prepared on November 23. No drafting information is given on the source text.↩
- Lieutenant General Burns discussed the entry of the U.N. Force with Egyptian officials in Cairo between November 8 and 10 and again on November 12. (Burns, Between Arab and Israeli (New York: Ivan Obolensky, Inc., 1962), pp. 196–205) U.S. reports concerning these discussions and the simultaneous discussions between Hammarskjöld and Egyptian officials taking place in New York are in Department of State, Central File 320.5780. The first UNEF unit was flown to Abu Suweir, near Ismailia, on November 15.↩
- November 20–21.↩