Foreign Relations of the United States, 1958–1960, Africa, Volume XIV

120. Memorandum of Telephone Conversation Between President Eisenhower and Secretary of State Herter⁰

July 13, 1960, 1 p.m.

MEMORANDUM OF TELEPHONE CONVERSATION WITH THE PRESIDENT FROM NEWPORT

The Secretary said there had been further developments since their earlier conversation.¹ The Secretary then read the text of the message which Hammarskjold had received from Kasavubu and Lumumba.² The Secretary said this reached the SYG this morning and he is holding an informal luncheon with the Security Council members today. The Secretary said since 11:30 this morning, the SYG has been in touch with the Belgian and Soviet representatives at the UN. The Secretary said the SYG plans to announce this afternoon that he is calling a formal meeting of the Security Council tonight to consider this matter, and the SYG plans to say that the UN was taking responsibility for the maintenance of order in the Congo but the SYG is apparently going to ignore the part indicating they want the troops to act against Belgian aggression. The Secretary said the SYG hopes to do something like Suez of getting UN troops in to restore order and letting the Belgians phase out. The Secretary then read to the President the text of the latest telegram reporting on the deteriorating situation.³

The Secretary said he had talked to Cabot Lodge a couple of times and Lodge will report after the luncheon. The Secretary said in the meanwhile the SYG has offers of troops from Tunisia of one battalion, 300 from Ghana, and is hopeful of troops of Senegalese, Sudan and Yugoslavia, but SYG has to get vote by SC. The President asked if the Soviets won’t veto this in the SC, and the Secretary said that was a real question; that in view of the fact that the offers have come from African States, the Soviets may hesitate to veto, but if they do veto we will have to take really serious look at the entire situation. The Secretary said it would really be the beginning of something serious if the Chinese Communists were called in by the Congo.⁴ The Secretary said he thought we would know more during the course of the afternoon. The Secretary said the Soviet representative in New York refused to attend the informal meeting of the SC members if it were held in the regular conference room, which was the reason the SYG is having a luncheon meeting. The Secretary said the Belgians had asked the French to assist them to stave off a SC meeting, but things have been developing rapidly since then.

The President asked why Hammarskjold doesn’t consider this an emergency and just accept the troop offers and himself go there and take charge. The Secretary said that is essentially what the SYG wants to do, but in terms of money for financing this he has to have a vote from a UN organ. The President said, on the other hand, in the case of an emergency we and the British and French could guarantee expenses up to a given amount. The Secretary said we did that before but it led to complications because it was on a voluntary contribution basis and if the SYG can do it without delay out of UN funds it is better.

The President asked if it would be all right if he called the Secretary about 6:00 this evening and the Secretary said he thought that would be fine since we should have better information by that time. The President asked if we have anybody of our own to evacuate from the Congo and the Secretary said we are in pretty good shape except for some missionaries scattered in areas where there is no way of getting in a plane or helicopter. The President said he thought some of the Africans foresaw this. The Secretary said the African Ambassadors at the UN had a meeting at the end of June with Hammarskjold before Congo independence but the trouble they foresaw was not with the Belgians but in terms of inter-tribal fights.

On food for the Congo, the President said we could get three or four C–130’s and move this in. The Secretary said we are moving food from Lome. The Secretary said he had been talking to Brussels and they are trying to get a reasonable estimate of what is needed and for how long in consultation with Bunche.

[Here follows discussion of other matters.]

0. Source: Department of State, Secretary’s Memoranda of Conversation: Lot 64 D 199. No classification marking. Prepared in the Secretary’s office.
1. Reference is apparently to a conversation at 10:15 a.m. that morning; a memorandum of that conversation prepared in the Secretary’s office does not record any discussion of the Congo. (Eisenhower Library, Herter Papers, Telephone Conversations)
2. Reference is to a message of July 13 from Kasavubu and Lumumba to Hammarskjold. It stated that U.N. military assistance was requested not to restore order but to protect the Congo against Belgian aggression, that the request was for a U.N. force drawn from neutral countries and not from the United States, and that if assistance was not received without delay the Congo would appeal to the “Bandung Treaty Powers.” For text, see U.N. doc. S/4382, printed in American Foreign Policy: Current Documents, 1960, p. 524. Lodge had read the message to Herter in a telephone conversation at 11:10 a.m. that morning. (Memorandum of telephone conversation; Eisenhower Library, Herter Papers, Telephone Conversations)
3. Not further identified.
4. Lodge told Herter in the telephone conversation cited in footnote 1 above that the Secretary-General thought the reference to the Bandung powers meant the Congo would turn to Communist China. The People’s Republic of China had been a participant in the Conference of Afro-Asian Countries in Bandung, Indonesia, April 18–24, 1955; for text of the communiqué of April 24, 1955, see American Foreign Policy, 1950-1955: Basic Documents, pp. 2344–2352.