318. Memorandum From the Department of State Executive Secretary (Read) to the President’s Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Bundy)0
SUBJECT
- ECOSOC Action on Expulsion of Portugal and South Africa
In view of the President’s interest in this matter, I suggest you fill him in on the developments recounted below. A full reporting cable is expected from Geneva Thursday morning.
As you know, the Economic and Social Council has had before it resolutions calling for the expulsion of Portugal and South Africa from the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA). Today ECOSOC voted to expel Portugal by a vote of 7-0-11 (U.S., U.K., France). Final action regarding South Africa has been postponed to sometime early next week.
Expulsion of Portugal
The principal reason why we were not able to prevent Portugal’s expulsion is that it refused to accept associate membership in ECA, as have the U.K., France and Spain. We were ready to be helpful in this regard and submit and campaign for a resolution providing associate membership for Portugal as an alternative to expulsion. The Portuguese turned down our suggestion that they accept such status.
We abstained on the expulsion resolution, along with the British and the French and others. We explained this vote in ECOSOC, to the Portuguese, and to the press on grounds that: (a) the decision was really made last year by the ECA that its membership should consist only of African countries; (b) that the U.K., France and Spain have accepted associate membership, which we believe is the appropriate status for Portugal; and (c) that to vote against the ECA recommendation for expelling Portugal would be an anomaly since it would imply we believe Portugal, a European metropole, should be a full member and have a status greater than the U.K., France and Spain which accepted associate membership. In short, since Portugal insisted on full membership, the proposition on which we wanted to vote—for Portugal to become an associate member—was not available to us.
In order to minimize any adverse repercussions we have explained the above several times to the Portuguese, the latest being about noon [Page 504] today. The Portuguese, of course, will remain unconvinced that we could not have prevented its expulsion by voting “no” on the resolution. Last night they informed us there were seven sure votes against expulsion and asked us to reconsider our abstention. This appears to be part of a deliberate campaign by the Portuguese to misrepresent the voting alignment and how individual delegates would vote, including our own. We nevertheless took the prudent step of once again checking the vote count this morning. Our delegation reported telephonically, after a meeting of the Western caucus, that the vote count was 7 in favor of expulsion, 0 against, and 11 abstentions. This is exactly how the vote came out.
Expulsion of South Africa
The situation regarding possible expulsion of South Africa is much more complicated.
As a device to prevent adoption of an expulsion resolution, South Africa, in contrast to the Portuguese, heeded our advice and informed ECOSOC that it has voluntarily decided not to participate in the ECA. We were therefore in a position to support a resolution which would have the effect of making South Africa a temporary non-participant in ECA in lieu of a resolution calling for its outright expulsion. The non-participation resolution failed of adoption 6 in favor (U.S.), 6 against (Soviet bloc plus Africans) and 6 abstentions (U.K., France, Australia and Latin America). The Communists and some of the Africans voted against because they favor expulsion, whereas some of our close allies abstained because they felt it was too strong. The expulsion resolution has not yet been voted upon. In this confused parliamentary situation, Ambassador Bingham successfully got a postponement of further voting for a few days.
While we wish to make our decision based on a full report from Geneva, we believe our likely next step will be to submit a slightly changed resolution embracing the non-participation formula and to work on the Latins, Australia and the U.K. to support this proposition in order to prevent adoption of the expulsion resolution. We believe there is better than an even chance of succeeding in this tactic.