55. Memorandum From the Secretary of State Dulles to President Eisenhower0
SUBJECT
- Personal Message to the Baghdad Pact Ministerial Council
The Sixth Session of the Baghdad Pact Ministerial Council will convene in Karachi on January 26. We continue to believe it to be in the United States’ interest to give strong support to the Baghdad Pact even though we are not technically members of the Pact. As agreed in London and as announced on July 28, 1958 in a Declaration1 in which [Page 209] we participated, we have been engaged in negotiation of bilateral executive agreements with the Middle East member states to give further effect to our desire to cooperate in this regional collective security and defense arrangement.
We have had several expressions from these Middle East member states indicating a feeling that our support for the Baghdad Pact is beginning to wane. I feel it would be most useful if a personal message from you could be read to the Ministerial Council by Mr. Loy Henderson, who will be the Chief of the United States Delegation. There is enclosed a draft of such a message2 for your consideration which, if you approve, we would send to Mr. Henderson telegraphically. I further suggest that your message be released to the press on January 26 at which time it would be delivered by Mr. Henderson to the Council meeting.
- Source: Eisenhower Library, Whitman File, Dulles–Herter Series. Confidential.↩
- See Document 33.↩
- After making minor revisions, the President approved the draft and it was read by Henderson at the opening session of the Council meeting in Karachi on January 26. For text, see Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1959, pp. 131–132.↩