160. Telegram From the Department of State to the Embassy in the United Kingdom1
1417. Please pass following to Prime Minister from President:
“August 19, 1957
Dear Harold: This supplements my message to you of the 17th.2 Foster is now back and although both of us are deeply engaged today in relation to the Mutual Security legislation we did have lunch together and he had a talk with Harold Caccia. It looks as though if you want quick action which will result in the non-inscription of the matter the best we can do, consistently with our prior practice and lack of knowledge of the complicated local facts here, would be to abstain. This is as good as a negative vote from the standpoint of keeping the matter off the agenda and I do not think you need to worry about the outcome.
If you want to have the matter discussed and deal with the Treaty of Sib’ and such matters sufficiently to make a clear public case against there being an inscribable issue, then we might feel that we could vote positively against inscription. This would of course depend somewhat upon the character of the presentation that was made. But we assume that you have a good case in this respect.
You may well decide that it is better not to have the argument and to get the matter quickly behind us so that we can work together on some constructive developments.
I know you would rather have us vote from the outset and immediately against inscription. However, I think that we can recognize that the common goals which we have cannot always be best achieved by our necessarily always taking a uniform public position.
As you know, both personally and officially, Foster and I want always to be on the same slot with you but we think that all things considered the above is the best solution we can figure out at the moment.
Sincerely, DDE”
Observe Presidential Handling.