Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961–1963, Volume XXV, Organization of Foreign Policy; Information Policy; United Nations; Scientific Matters

253. Paper Prepared in the Department of State¹

Washington, April 29, 1963.

SUGGESTED COMMENTS BY THE PRESIDENT TO CONGRESSIONAL LEADERS

ON FINANCING THE UNITED NATIONS

Background:

1. Sales of the UN Bonds will just about cover the Middle East and Congo peacekeeping operations for the twelve months from July 1962 to June 1963.

2. The UN’s deficit is still fluctuating around $100 million. The arrears owed on the Middle East and Congo operations are also about $100 million, of which two-thirds is owed by the Soviet bloc. (The other big debtors are France, the Republic of China, Belgium, and the Arab States.)

3. There is no provision for financing peacekeeping costs after July 1, 1963.

4. The UNEF must continue to sit on the lid in the Middle East which is more dangerously explosive right now than at any time since Suez—witness the precarious state of Yemen and Jordan and the recent coups in Syria and Iraq.

5. The Congo Force will be down from 19,000 troops last December to under 7,500 by July 1. We do not yet know whether some part of this Force will need to be maintained in the Congo in 1964; but the Congolese National Army is not nearly well enough trained and disciplined to risk eliminating the Congo Force now.

The Special General Assembly

6. A Special General Assembly of the UN has been called for May 14th, to consider UN financing. Unless we take the lead, the small countries will try to put through a new assessment scale for peacekeeping under which we would be obligated to pay more than forty percent of the cost of any future peacekeeping force.

7. We have been opposing, and will continue to oppose

(a) any general arrangement for the financing of peacekeeping that would apply to unknown future operations.

(b) a “special scale” for peacekeeping by which the United States would be assessed at more than our Regular Budget percentage (32.02%).

8. The President is instructing the State Department and the United States Delegation to take the lead in developing a common position among the main Free World contributors. The framework for this position would be a modified version of an earlier British proposal, which has come to be called “Three-bite” approach.

(a) Bite one would finance a minimum amount on the Regular Budget scale of assessments.

(b) Bite two would assess the developed countries in the Regular Budget scale, but assess the less-developed countries at a lower rate-perhaps fifty percent of their Regular Budget share.

(c) Bite three would cover the resulting shortfall through small voluntary contributions from the developed countries.

9. We will try to make some arrangement whereby those countries (like Cuba) which are unwilling to pay on principle, or which failed to pay on time, would not get the benefit of the lower rate in bite two. Thus Cuba and Outer Mongolia, among the Soviet Bloc countries now considered as “less developed” in UN terminology, could be disqualified, and we would hope not to be in the position of helping reduce assessments for communist countries.

What the United States Would Pay

10. The total amount of money we are trying to raise in this somewhat complicated manner is around $40 million for July–December 1963. On this basis, we would need about $12.8 million to cover our thirty-two percent, plus a voluntary contribution in the range of one to one-and-a-half million dollars. (FYI. On the basis of these figures, our share of the total, would come out to just under thirty-six percent. However, it is not recommended that the matter be discussed in terms of percentages.)

11. The assessed amount would be funded in the usual way by a supplemental appropriation request, after the bargain is struck in the Special General Assembly next month.

12. The small voluntary contribution could be met under existing authority by Presidential Waiver of the cost of airlift services which the United States provides the United Nations for UNEF and the Congo. While we would of course make perfectly clear to Congress what the whole arrangement entails, the Congress would not need to vote the amount above our regularly assessed share.

Article 19—The “Loss of Vote Provision”

13. The only section the Charter provides for nonpayment of dues is Article 19 which says a country will lose its vote in the General Assembly “if the amount of its arrears equals or exceeds the amount of the contributions due from it for the preceding two full years.”

14. Lumping regular peacekeeping dues together (which is the way the Article 19 liability is figured), there were until recently ten countries to which this sanction would have been applied this next General Assembly. It now seems that all ten of these countries will pay enough to get within the two-year rule, before the Assembly meets two weeks from now. Two of the ten countries are Cuba and Hungary; whether they pay or not will be some indication of Soviet willingness to face a loss of vote under Article 19.

15. The Soviets are continuing their financial boycott of both UNEF and the Congo operation. If they fail to pay current assessments and nine million dollars more they will be subject to an automatic loss of vote in the General Assembly next year. We intend to campaign vigorously to make sure we have the necessary majority to deprive the Soviet Union of its vote if it continues its financial boycott of the UN. If they are faced with certain defeat on this issue, the Soviets would probably find a way to wriggle off the hook on which they have placed themselves. The alternative would be for them to leave the UN.

USUN will be consulting with other governments during the next couple of weeks. At the same time, the State Department will explain thepresent position to key members of the Foreign Relations, Foreign Affairs, and Appropriations Committees in both Houses of Congress.

Our bargaining position in the UN will be weakened by an outbreak of public debate on this subject in Congress during the next couple of weeks. We would hope the Leadership can help us create the conditions for striking a bargain in the General Assembly which both gets these two important operations (UNEF and Congo) financed for the rest of the year and does it at the very minimum cost to the United States.

1. Source: Kennedy Library, National Security Files, Subjects Series, United Nations (General), 1/63–4/63, Box 311. Confidential. Drafted by Cleveland on April 29 and sent to the President under cover of a memorandum from Acting Secretary Ball on the same date. Ball indicated that the “talking paper” was to be used by the President in discussions with Congressional leaders, and that a longer position paper on UN financing, dated April 27, had already been sent to him. That paper is ibid.