199. Memorandum on the Substance of Discussion at a Department of State–Joint Chiefs of Staff Meeting, Pentagon, Washington, September 30, 1960, 11 a.m.1
[Here follows discussion of unrelated matters.]
3. Current Session of the General Assembly (State Initiative)
Mr. Merchant said he would like to make a few observations about the current session of the General Assembly. On balance, it was going reasonably well from our standpoint, we had received encouraging support from our allies, particularly from Macmillan and Diefenbaker, and Khrushchev to a degree seemed to have overplayed his hand.
The new African nations appeared to be motivated by a desire to express their national dignity and sovereignty and in this sought identity with the United Nations. In this respect Khrushchev’s rough behavior and attacks on the Secretary General had not gone down well with all of these new African nations.
Mr. Merchant said, however, he wishes to qualify this observation, that we should not be complacent or lull ourselves into thinking that Khrushchev has made our case for us. It may be that Khrushchev, on the Secretary General issue, is shooting in excess of what he wants or will settle for. Certainly he is trying to make certain that Hammarskjold is not reelected when his term expires.
We are uncertain as to how long Khrushchev will stay in New York.
Admiral Burke commented that a 19-day extension of stay had just been granted to the Baltika.
General Twining asked if we thought Mr. Khrushchev might come up with something new.
Mr. Merchant said that we had “licked him” on disarmament procedure in the General Committee last night, Khrushchev having wanted to have disarmament discussed in plenary instead of being discussed first in committee. Khrushchev has been anxious for propaganda purposes to get disarmament immediately discussed in the GA itself.
It appeared likely that Khrushchev was going to call for concurrent discussions, i.e., a half day of plenary sessions and a half day of committee work or for plenaries on one day and committee meetings on the next.
[Page 373]General White asked what weight we could put on Khrushchev’s motives in staying in New York for so long and for actually having attended the GA. General White said that obviously Khrushchev was motivated by a desire to get the West to disarm but then again maybe he genuinely wants disarmament on both sides. Another theory was that he expected to fail in this attempt and after failing planned to go back to Moscow and say, “This is it”.
Admiral Burke asked about the November ideological-psychological conference of the Soviet bloc.2
Mr. Merchant said there was some evidence Mr. Khrushchev was winning his ideological fight with the Communist Chinese and perhaps what he was after at this November conference was a public statement by all the bloc members showing agreement on ideology.
Reverting to General White’s intervention Mr. Merchant said there was no doubt in his mind but that Khrushchev’s main purpose was to get the West to disarm on Soviet terms.
General White said that was the logical answer but certainly his other two observations were possibilities.
Mr. Smith stated that Mr. Bohlen interprets Khrushchev’s presence in New York and activities there as being mainly directed toward the Communist Chinese. He said he didn’t put any weight on General White’s third point, that he couldn’t see the Russians mounting a preemptive strike.
- Source: Department of State, State-JCS Meetings: Lot 70 D 823. Top Secret. Drafted in the Department of State, but not cleared with the Department of Defense. The source text does not identify the drafting officer.↩
- Reference is presumably to the gathering in Moscow of the leaders of Communist nations to commemorate the 43d anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution on November 7.↩