414. Memorandum From Nathaniel Davis of the National Security Council Staff to the President’s Special Assistant (Rostow)1
SUBJECT
- U.S. Delegation to the UN GA Special Session
With the exception of Ambassador Rogers, the proposed list of representatives for the UN Special Session is a strictly “in-house” group. For a debate that will be dominated by the racial situation in South West Africa, the delegation is notable for the absence of any Negroes. It also has no Congressional members.
Apparently IO originally intended to include Senators Church and Case (who were at the last General Assembly), and perhaps one or two public members. Joe Sisco recommended this to the Secretary. The Secretary then called Goldberg, and the upshot was to cut the delegation back to the regular New York staff plus Rogers, who has been our representative on the Committee on South West Africa. The reasons were: The IO budget is strapped for funds; we have not generally appointed full delegations to special sessions; we are trying to keep the whole session in low key and would be just as pleased, in fact, if the [Page 897] Special Session were called off. Moreover, the extra public members would not be read-in on the complex problems under discussion, and might find themselves fifth wheels. Case and Church might not want to leave Congressional business to go to New York, and Case might not want to be closely involved in defending U.S.-African policy (he begged off a major speech on that subject last fall).
I think it’s usually not helpful to try to change this sort of recommendation—particularly when the Secretary and Goldberg have been personally involved. However, I’m not particularly impressed by the reasons given. I should think we could at least ask the Congressional leadership if they’d like to have some participation. After all, Congress was in session during part of the last General Assembly; and the Congressional delegates probably would be back and forth any how. The following are several public members it might be worth thinking about:
- 1.
- Whitney Young of the Urban League.
- 2.
- Marvin Wachman, President of Lincoln University.
- 3.
- John Mosler of the Mosler Safe Company (he has substantial African connections).
- 4.
- Mercer Cook.
- 5.
- Patricia Harris.
- 6.
- John Spencer, a young Rockefeller son-in-law who lived in Nairobi for two years—an African specialist for Ford.
(Incidentally, I understand Stanley Marcus would be happy to serve on the U.S. Delegation next autumn if he were asked again.)
- Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, Agency File, United Nations, Vol 7. Confidential. A copy was sent to Bromley Smith.↩