Office of the Historian

389. Memorandum From the Executive Secretary of the Department of State (Eliot) to the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger)1

Washington, August 4, 1971.

SUBJECT

  • Chirep—Initial Reaction of Key Governments to US Policy Announcement

The initial reaction of the countries with whom we have closely consulted on Chirep over the past several months—Japan, Australia and New Zealand—has been extremely favorable. The Japanese are particularly pleased that we gave them three days’ notice and accommodated Prime Minister Sato on the language of the announcement. Australia and New Zealand welcomed the announcement, but said that to have a chance of success the resolution must state that Peking should hold the Security Council seat.

Reaction from the other countries to which we gave advance notice was also good, except for the UK. The Indonesian, Korean, Philippine and Thai Foreign Ministers all reacted very favorably, the Dutch slightly less so. Douglas-Home, however, took a rather jaundiced view of our position and feared it might adversely affect the President’s planned trip to Peking.2

Just prior to our announcement, the Taipei Foreign Ministry issued a statement which reasserted its claim to be the only legally constituted government of China, called upon all peace-loving nations to defeat the Albanian resolution, and stated that it would continue to struggle “for the preservation of the Charter.” The words “struggle to the end”, which appeared in an advance text given us earlier by our Embassy in Taipei, do not appear in the official English version. Public reaction thus far has been relatively moderate.3

Our UN Mission held a meeting with 22 potential co-sponsors on August 3. Most supported our new policy, but several emphasized that the representation resolution must address the Security Council seat problem. The Ivory Coast and the Netherlands were especially clear [Page 770] on this point. The Japanese UN Representative (before the meeting) tried to caution Ambassador Bush that if the Security Council seat came up, “it would not be sufficient for Bush merely to say (he) would report back to Washington” and he felt the US should indicate then and there that we would support including the Security Council aspect in the resolution. He said he thought Japan would go along.

New Zealand today officially informed the Department it would not co-sponsor unless the resolution explicitly dealt with the Security Council seat.

R.H. Miller 4
  1. Source: National Archives, RG 59, Central Files 1970–73, UN 6 CHICOM. Secret; Nodis. An attached transmittal memorandum, also dated August 4, from Assistant Secretary De Palma indicated that the memorandum was drafted on August 3 by Feldman, and cleared by Shoesmith, Armitage, Herz, and Winthrop G. Brown.↩
  2. Douglas-Home’s message was passed to the Department of State in an August 4 note from the British Embassy. (Ibid.)↩
  3. The August 2 statement was transmitted to the Department in telegram 3787 from Taipei, August 3. (Ibid.)↩
  4. Miller signed for Eliot above Eliot’s typed signature.↩