344. Telegram From the Department of State to the Embassy in the Congo1
792. Eyes only Ambassador and Consul from Under Secy. McGhee. Following are some broad observations on our strategy in the Congo-Katanga issue:
We are approaching the “crunch” in our efforts to resolve the problem of Katangese secession. We have failed to induce meaningful negotiations under the Plan by merely appealing to the two parties. It is more important to recognize this fact and pass on to some other approach with a better chance of success than to attempt to assess blame as between Tshombe and Adoula.
The next means which must be employed, to which we are committed under the Plan, like in the area of forceful actions in the economic field; i.e., actions taken contrary to the desires and without the agreement of Tshombe and in some cases of the companies involved. We must keep in mind, however, that the objective of the pressures these actions will create is still to induce negotiations under the Plan. If they result in actions by Tshombe or others to destroy the Katanga economy and their continued resistance in the “bush”, our policy cannot be said to have succeeded. As a consequence, there must be somebody for Tshombe to talk to when, hopefully, the time comes when he wants to talk.
[Page 700]Pursuant to this, I have today requested Gardiner in New York, and he has promised to try, to get Adoula to name a new negotiator at ministerial level to go to Eville in place of Ngalula. Gardiner believes it will be better for the negotiator “not to run after Tshombe but to wait until Tshombe asks to talk to him”. Hopefully discussions could, in the meantime, be resumed in the Military and Economic Commissions.
The GOC must, if and when Tshombe desires to talk, be prepared to negotiate flexibly with him. In the past the GOC have often appeared merely to be holding firm in the expectation that the UN and we will in the end be willing to crush Tshombe. In the meantime, I believe we should make clear to Adoula that failure to be willing to negotiate and to stop GOC attacks at Kongolo in which we should make clear to him we know are still going on, will make it much more difficult for us and the GOB to apply the more severe economic measures that we agree are necessary.
In planning measures to put pressure on Tshombe, we must seek to minimize the political problems he will face in seeking a way out. We must also take into account, however, that just because he says he will not respond to threats and pressures, does not mean that he will not in fact do so when their full effect is felt. Tshombe is capable of yielding to pressures now just as he has in the past.
We must also continue to make it abundantly clear that we have not abandoned the Plan. All the steps we propose to take involve either a part of the Plan or pressures envisaged in the Plan to achieve all or a part of the Plan. Actually the Plan, as we know, is merely a compendium of principles applicable to the practical arrangements to reunite what, in effect, are today two separate countries. If we did not have a Plan these same arrangements would have to be made. This reunion is a complex affair. All the parts cannot be made to fit into place at one time merely by the clapping of the hands. The simplest elements of the Plan, even those which both parties are willing to carry out, require difficult negotiation in order to determine what each side is to do and when. These negotiations will be completed at different times for different parts of the Plan. Similarly the application of pressure methods envisaged under the Plan cannot be accomplished by some automatic process, but requires careful negotiation and planning among the parties concerned.
We should not admit, moreover, that an effort to push a particular part of the Plan represents an abandonment of the Plan. If we merely stand aside and exhort both parties to proceed with the Plan as a whole, which actually involves many separate elements of varying difficulty, nothing happens. It is expecting too much of the parties to ask them to face all the Plan at once.
Our best strategy, it is believed, is to take those parts of the Plan ready for immediate execution, say the oath-taking or closing of the [Page 701] GOK foreign office, and to urge they be done, hoping that this will result in removal of obstacles that will permit the parties to proceed to carry out other parts of the Plan. If it does not, we have to start pressing for action on next step. The more the various steps are interrelated and the accomplishment of one set as a precondition for proceeding with the other, the more rigid the Plan becomes and the more difficult its accomplishment.
We must also play for the “breaks.” If the “crunch” produces any “give” on the part of Tshombe, we must be in a position to take advantage of it to further the Plan. It is highly unlikely that the final act of the drama of Katanga secession can be stage-managed by us or can even be predicted with any high degree of certainty. Our principal opportunity lies in so setting the stage that we can take advantage, as they occur, of events not now foreseeable but which could have a decisive effect on the outcome.
We must always keep in mind, moreover, that what can be achieved through agreement, even agreement under pressure, will be much easier to live with later and be more likely to “stick”, than what is achieved by the direct application of force—particularly military force.
- Source: Department of State, Central Files, 770G.00/11–3062. Secret; Priority. Drafted and approved by McGhee and cleared by Burdett, Fredericks, and Wallner. Also sent to Brussels, London, Elisabethville, and USUN.↩