Office of the Historian

264. Memorandum From William H. Brubeck of the National Security Council Staff to President Kennedy1

Washington, September 6, 1963.
1.
You are meeting Monday afternoon2 with State and Ambassador Stevenson to survey the UN General Assembly that begins September 17. The session is for general discussion and guidance, not firm decisions. The gist of State Department views is contained in a 4-page summary (Tab II) in the attached briefing book.3
2.
There are presently apparent no crucial issues or overriding subjects for the GA-e.g., Chinese representation will probably not be a serious issue, unless it gets tied in to bargaining over African problems.
3.
In addition to the South Viet Nam Buddhist issue, the biggest item will probably be another round on African issues with several African heads of states present; under last month’s Security Council’s resolutions the Secretary General will report back the end of October on South Africa and Portuguese Africa so we will automatically be caught in these dilemmas again in both the Security Council and the GA. It is too early to say yet what we can do about those.
4.
The only important question for your decision on Monday is your own possible appearance and speech in New York (a State Department draft of a proposed speech is attached).4 The Department would propose to tie your appearance to UN interest in further peaceful initiatives following the Test Ban Treaty; you will have to consider whether you want to use the UN at this time as a place to say anything important on this subject. Although the State Department argues that your appearance might deflect some emphasis from African topics, it seems more likely that the South African and Portuguese issues would be just as strenuous and difficult in any event.
5.
State may particularly ask your views on several other points, such as-(a) the Hungarian issue which will not be on the GA Agenda unless there are some particular domestic reasons for reviving it at this time; (b) a possible proposal for a “UN Commissioner on Human Rights” (Tab IV, page 7)5 on the general proposition that our human rights problems are already an international open book and that such a [Page 585] Commissioner might help to illuminate comparably the human rights problems of some of our critics abroad.
William H. Brubeck6
  1. Source: Kennedy Library, National Security Files, Subjects Series, United Nations (General), 9/1/63–9/8/63, Box 311. Confidential.↩
  2. September 9.↩
  3. Not attached. See Document 263.↩
  4. Not found. See Document 267.↩
  5. Not found.↩
  6. Printed from a copy that bears this typed signature.↩