Office of the Historian

312. Telegram From the Mission at the United Nations to the Department of State1

New York, November 7, 1957—1 p.m.

Delga 381. Re Disarmament. Department should review carefully voting results on 24-power disarmament resolution2 as well as Indian and Japanese resolutions on weapons test suspension.3 Particularly on last two resolutions new elements appeared which have less than favorable implications for continued support in UN for US position. Following are some preliminary GADel observations.

1.
Vote on 24-power resolution (57–9–15) slightly stronger than GADel estimated. All in all it constituted impressive show of US [Page 759] strength. GADel estimate in Delga 220,4 which was deliberately cautious, mainly in error in overestimating “no” votes, which were restricted to Soviet Bloc and even excluded Yugoslavia. Vote might have been even stronger if held a day earlier, since, as GADel informed by British, Nepal and Burma who planned vote in favor, received last minute instructions to abstain. These instructions sent under pressure Indian Foreign Office. Austria, Cambodia, Ethiopia, Ireland, Jordan, Libya, Malaya and Sweden indicated they might abstain, all swung to “yes” during course of debate.
2.

Indian resolution on test suspension received unexpectedly large vote (22–38–20), although Department estimate of last August (Deptel 1715) of 20–45–17 not far wide of mark, given fact estimate based on Soviet rather than Indian resolution. Whereas Department estimated Sudan and Syria would vote in favor, they in fact abstained. On other hand, Finland, Ghana, Mexico, Morocco and Nepal, who Department thought would abstain, supported Indian proposal. Biggest surprise was Iran, who we thought would oppose and which finally voted for. Austria, Guatemala, Haiti, Iraq, Ireland, Sweden and Thailand moved from expected opposition to abstention on separate test issue. Philippines was only one to move to our side from expected abstention.

On whole, outcome on this issue less favorable than we hoped, and presages more acute difficulties on this question next Assembly.

3.
GADel estimate (26–48–7) (Delga 220) on outcome vote on Japanese test resolution which was 18-32-31, overestimated support, but also badly overestimated opposition and underestimated number of abstentions. Major unexpected developments were support of Japanese resolution by Ecuador, Iran and Iraq, and abstention by Chile, Costa Rica, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Norway, Pakistan, Paraguay, Philippines, Portugal and Venezuela (of particular interest is falling away of three NATO states. Only last-minute contact by GADel prevented Turkish abstention). If Soviets had supported Japanese proposal, resolution would have carried. Department should recognize vote on Japanese resolution was in reality vote on separate test issue.
Lodge
  1. Source: Department of State, Central Files, 330.13/11–757. Confidential; Priority.↩
  2. Approved by the First Committee on November 6 and subsequently adopted by the U.N. General Assembly on November 14, by a vote of 56 to 9 with 15 abstentions, as Resolution 1148 (XII), printed in Documents on Disarmament, 1945–1959, vol. II, pp. 914–915.↩
  3. The Indian resolution, submitted on September 21 and later revised (U.N. doc. A/C.1/L.176 and Revs. 1, 2, and 4), was rejected by the First Committee on November 6 and later resubmitted and rejected by the General Assembly on November 19 by a vote of 34 to 24 with 20 abstentions. The final version (Rev. 4) of this resolution is Ibid., pp. 906–907. The Japanese resolution introduced on September 23 (U.N. doc. A/C1/L.174) was rejected by the First Committee on November 6.↩
  4. Delga 220 from New York, November 7. (Department of State, Central Files, 330.13/11–757)↩
  5. Telegram 171 to New York, August 26. (Ibid., 330.13/8–2657)↩