496. Memorandum From Nathaniel Davis of the National Security Council Staff to the President’s Special Assistant (Rostow)1

SUBJECT

  • The Situation in New York November 1

On the resolutions there has been some modification of both the Indian and the Canadian-Danish drafts. On the key issue of withdrawal the Indian draft has dropped the date and adopted the formula of the Latin American draft of last July2 (which we supported):

“withdraw from all territories occupied by it as a result of the recent conflict.”

The new Canadian-Danish draft3 is really a modification of language worked out by Dick Pedersen. What it tries to do is to adopt as much verbiage as possible from the Indian draft without giving up anything essential. The key withdrawal language reads:

“None of the states in the area should retain forces on the territory of another state against its will or persist in refusing to withdraw them.”

Ambassador Goldberg is having a working lunch with the Danes, Canadians and Japanese to try to figure out where we go from here. The alternatives seem to be further efforts by the non-permanent members or US-Soviet talks. The feeling in New York is that the danger of the Indians getting nine votes in the Security Council for their draft is receding. As a result of our vigorous efforts to push the Argentines and Brazilians back on to the reservation, at this point they could probably muster about eight votes. However, the Argentine continues to argue for points in the Indian draft and is pretty shaky.

We are making some headway with our argument that a UN representative can make real progress only with some degree of cooperation from both sides.

According to New York, Bergus may not be too far off in his guess that the Indian draft might get a healthy GA majority. The main thing [Page 965] standing in the way of this is the considerable realization in New York that one more GA resolution-to-be-ignored might not be helpful. There is also less than total enthusiasm for a repetition of last summer’s acrimonious and fruitless GA debate.

The non-permanent members of the Security Council meet again at 3:00 p.m.

ND
  1. Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, Agency File, United Nations, Vol. VII. Confidential.
  2. See footnote 4, Document 340.
  3. Telegram 1873 from USUN, November 1, transmitted the text of the revised Canadian-Danish draft. (National Archives and Records Administration, RG 59, Central Files 1967–69, POL 27 ARAB–ISR/UN)