Foreign Relations of the United States, 1958–1960, United Nations and General International Matters, Volume II

463. Telegram From the Department of State to the Mission at the United Nations¹

Washington, November 6, 1959—7:02 p.m.

Gadel 93. Re Outer Space (Delgas 326, 327, 340).² Pending receipt from Kuznetsov of specific comments on our text, Department transmits following interim guidance:

1. Our impression is that Soviets wish separate conference proposal from question of Committee and future arrangements. In this way Soviets could press hard for unanimous adoption of their conference proposal which would be clearly identified as Soviet initiative. Moreover, separating out conference proposal in another resolution would appear give Soviets freer hand to oppose or not support our resolution relating to Committee’s work and future arrangements and thereby not jeopardize directly in one and same resolution conference proposal made by Soviets themselves. It would also lead to voting situation in which Afro-Asians could more easily vote for conference resolution as generally-supported affirmative measure on international cooperation in outer space while abstaining on US resolution, which would thus receive much smaller majority. In our resolution, Outer Space Committee is given job of making necessary arrangements for conference. As indicated in Gadel 70,³ we are prepared include such language as means making Soviet participation in future work of Outer Space Committee more attractive since Committee, among other things, would have task of implementing Soviet proposal for conference.

2. Department believes therefore you should insist for time being at least that all three elements (Committee report, future arrangements, and conference) be included in same resolution. If Soviets voice serious objections to inclusion of references to ad hoc committee in resolution you may (a) drop preambular paragraph 5 of our resolution; (b) eliminate word “accepts” and substitute word “notes” in operative paragraph 1; and (c) drop operative paragraph 2. You are further authorized at your discretion and if necessary to suggest that we would be willing break up three principal elements into parts A, B and C of one resolution. This would give Soviets certain amount of separation between Committee report on one hand and future arrangements on other. We recognize there are other ways to do this and Department does not at this stage wish preclude other possibilities. As we see it, separation of elements is not crux of problem. Crux is whether Soviets intend try to find acceptable composition formula, such as that indicated US position paper, as basis on which they would be willing participate in Outer Space Committee. Naturally, if Soviets first agree to participate in Outer Space Committee based on reasonable composition, question of form of resolution, one or several, is secondary. We note Kuznetsov said it was better to concentrate first on question of Outer Space Committee. We agree with this.

3. With respect to resolution contained Delga 327, Department authorizes you to include in our own resolution all preambular paragraphs. We can accept operative paragraph one if words “interested states” are replaced by words “members of UN or specialized agencies”. We cannot accept second operative paragraph which establishes Advisory Committee based on parity. Operative paragraph 3 obviously is superfluous in light of language in our text re arrangements for international scientific conference. As you are aware, we attach great importance to avoiding hard parity and believe stongly that Outer Space Committee with reasonable composition should be group that is given job of making arrangements for conference.

Herter

1. Source: Department of State, Central Files, 320.5701/11–659. Confidential. Drafted by Sisco on November 5; cleared by Meeker, Nunley, and Gathright; and approved by Wilcox who signed for Herter.
2. Delga 326 is supra; regarding Delgas 327 and 340, see footnotes 2 and 3, supra.
3. Gadel 70, October 28, transmitted instructions and specific language on the question of an international scientific conference on outer space. (Department of State, Central Files, 320.5701/10–1959)