Office of the Historian

45. Memorandum of a Conversation, Waldorf Astoria Hotel, New York, September 18, 1959, 10:30 a.m.1

SecDel/MC/14
New York, September 18, 1959, 10:30 a.m.

PARTICIPANTS

  • US
    • The Secretary
    • Mr. Merchant
    • Mr. Wilcox
    • Mr. Parsons
    • Mr. Sisco
  • France
    • S.E. Maurice Couve de Murville
    • Ambassador Herve Alphand
    • Amb. Armand Berard
  • UK
    • Rt. Hon. Selwyn Lloyd
    • Sir Pierson Dixon
    • Harold Beeley
    • Samuel Hood
    • Denis Laskey

SUBJECT

  • SEATO Planning

The Secretary said to Lloyd and Couve that we believe it is highly desirable for the SEATO military advisors to develop contingency plans in the event Laos itself is unable to meet further incursions or in the event of Vietminh and/or Chinese Communist attacks. The Secretary stressed that in the absence of such contingency plans, we might be caught in an embarrassing situation. The Secretary said he believed this was a good exercise to go through.

Lloyd expressed fear that the contingency planning would become known if SEATO does it. However, he felt that if the contingency planning was done on a tripartite basis the risk of it becoming known would be lessened considerably. He did not feel it would be a [Page 128] good idea to have it known that SEATO was doing this kind of planning, particularly while we are emphasizing at this point the role of the Security Council subcommittee.

Couve expressed the view that the real difficulty was that it was hard to know what the factual situation is in Laos, whether it was largely an internal matter or whether external interference was involved. The Secretary said contingency planning was more useful than making no plans at all. Mr. Parsons added that, although facts are hard to get, there was agreement that the situation in Laos was instigated and aided by outside help.

Lloyd stressed the importance of keeping this matter in military channels and to avoid any SEATO Council meeting which would have to take political action by ratifying what the military advisors had agreed to. The Secretary said we did not contemplate this as the purpose of the September 28 Washington meeting of SEATO. We hoped the SEATO meeting would consist of a brief, general discussion. Lloyd said he could not give the authority to agree to any contingency plan in the absence of knowing the actual circumstances and that such a decision would have to be taken by the government in the light of the then prevailing situation. The Secretary said like any contingency plan, it had to take into account just what we had available and what could be done.

It was agreed by the three that the contingency planning would continue in military channels.

  1. Source: Department of State, Secretary’s Memoranda of Conversation: Lot 64 D 199. Secret. Drafted on September 21 by Joseph J. Sisco, Deputy Director of the Office of United Nations Political and Security Affairs. Secretary Herter and Foreign Ministers Lloyd and Couve de Murville were in New York to attend the 14th Session of the U.N. General Assembly.↩