Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961–1963, Volume XXI, Africa

424. Memorandum From William H. Brubeck of the National Security Council Staff to the President’s Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Bundy)⁰

Washington, November 26, 1963.

SUBJECT

• South Africa in the Security Council

1. The UN Security Council will begin debate tomorrow and probably continue through the latter part of next week on the South African issue. In addition to the usual condemnation of apartheid, the debate will come down to a fight over the African proposal for an oil embargo against South Africa (South Africa is totally dependent on imports for POL, $90-100 million per year—we are one supplier).

2. President Kennedy had approved a US position opposing any such embargo or other mandatory sanctions. However, in addition to the policy we voluntarily announced during the August Security Council debate (terminating all arms shipments to South Africa at the end of the year but reserving the right to future sales for cold war defense) he approved a further commitment at this time to embargo a specifically enumerated list of items for the manufacture of arms.

3. Four of the five abstentions necessary to kill a sanctions resolution are in hand (US, UK, France and Norway) and the UK is prepared to veto if necessary. We are pressing Brazil and Venezuela to get one of them as a fifth abstainer, and thus avoid the need for veto. However, we are not having much luck.

4. In view of the general African concern over the civil rights significance of President Kennedy’s assassination,¹ and African uncertainty both as to President Johnson’s civil rights position and his position on African issues, I think this South African debate is important:

(a) He should if necessary personally communicate with Betancourt to obtain the fifth abstention and thus avoid a veto (even a British one) on apartheid as the first Security Council action during the Johnson Administration.

(b) Either by his own statement if the occasion is available in the next few days (e.g. new conference) or more probably in Stevenson’s speech in the Security Council,² President Johnson should be personally and in his own words recorded on the apartheid issue.

(c) Our proposed voluntary ban on shipment of items for manufacture of arms, which President Kennedy had intended to present as simply an implicit part of our August arms embargo, should be presented as an explicit extension of US policy on South Africa by President Johnson, in his own right.

These are actions which will be very effective at the UN and in Africa and which pose no countervailing difficulty for President Johnson to do.³

WB

0. Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, Aides File. Confidential.
1. President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, on November 22.
2. On December 4, Ambassador Stevenson spoke before the Security Council and appealed to South Africa to abandon its policy of apartheid. The Ambassador urged the Council to help bring about a peaceful evolution in South Africa toward a free and just society, and to make recommendations to member states which would diminish the chance that international tensions over apartheid might lead to a major explosion. He said that the United States would support the Norwegian draft resolution before the Security Council, which contained valuable proposals along these lines, including its provision that states should cease providing to South Africa equipment and materials for the production and maintenance of arms and munitions. For text of his remarks, see American Foreign Policy: Current Documents, 1963, pp. 694-698.
3. On December 4, the Norwegian draft resolution, which did not call for an oil embargo against South Africa, was adopted unanimously by the Security Council. For text of Security Council Resolution 182 (1963), see ibid., pp. 698-700.