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    "ocrText": "3/14/54: Reel 3, Track 1, Page 1\nMR. JESSUP:\nI was just trying to make the point that many of these issues were handled\nin rather a routine way, until you would suddenly come to a General Assem-\nbly in New York and then they would be thrown in your lap. They were\nthings you could notwestle with; people had already carried them to a\npoint where probably there was no particular way out, where it seemed to\nme on a number of occasions that, if they had been treated as matters of\nmore consequence, from the mere fact that they were subject to world dis-\ncussion in the UN, they would have received better guidance. And just\nas an instance of something that came up out of the routine into a larger\nquestion, I think the whole problem of human rights-which has a lot to do\nwith the fight on the Bricker Amendment and so on-partly due to the fact\nthat every one left it to Mrs. Roosevelt and her particular advisors; no\none was really keeping a look at it to see what its ultimate implications\nwere. And she adopted the policy of saying, \"Well, I'll warn you that we\nmay not get this ratified; but if this is what you want then agree\nthat it will go in.\" And so that you finally got a build-up of something\nwhich the United States was approving and yet which, when it was realized\nin the Senate particularly, brings down a great howl of demunciation of\nTRUNSA\nthe UN and all sorts of things. I think that is another instance in which\nthe difficulty of the operation prevented us from realizing in time, or\nanalyzing in time, the issues that were going to get bigger in importance.\nAnd another line of thought which has turned around in my mind is that,\nif you look at a much smaller operation which was of such immediate cri-\ntical importance that you did have to give your attention to it-namely,\nthe problem of NATO and of holding that group together, that was done;\nand we kept ? ; but it seemed to me that in the total picture we had\na problem also of holding the Latinos and the Arabl Nations and some of\nthe others on our side in some of these big issues, And that, instead\nof working on that as a problem throughout the year, we just had to work\n3/14/54: Reel 3, Track 1, Page 2\nlike the devil, as you did on the Korean case in 152, in order to keep\nthese people in line. And that we have got actually a continuing problem\nof holding even the little fellows; and the little fellows have more signi-\nficance today because of their possibility of agitating in the UN and\ntherefore this becomes a problem which is really more serious than it\nappears on its face because of the rather irresponsible and inherent incon-\nsequential character of the actors.\nMR. RUSK:\nI think another difficulty arises when our over-all strategy in the UN\nsystematically\nis not/thought of ahead of time in terms of maintaining leadership in this\nbig, free-world coalition. Where you go into an Assembly with 60 or 70\nitems on the agenda, scattered through six committees, the tendency is\nfor each delegate and for each staff officer to want to get our exact\nposition on each one of those 60 or 70 points; and you sort of total up\nHARRY US. COVERNMENT ARCHIVES& NATIONAL RECORDS momiv- UBRARK\nyour score at the end to see what your batting average is. Now, from\nthe point of view of the Secretary of State, it might be wise to look over\nthe entire pattern and determine those which we consider of the most vital\nimportance and those which are comparatively secondary in character. So\nthat some of our friends may get some satisfaction out of the modification\nof view on the minor items on our side and yet-and then stay with us on\nthe more important things. I think when we try to get exactly 100% of\neverything we think we want when we go to the Assembly, we get to be a\nlittle bit difficult to live with. And some of the other countries find\nit difficult to get any of their own prestige out of the situation. For\nexample, we had a little working arrangement with Carlos Romulo over a\nperiod of several years, where he KW would give us complete support in\nCommittee One on security and political matters, but he felt free to sound\noff at great length and with great vior in the Trusteeship of the Depen-\ndenarians (sp?) Committee on the colonial issue. Well, he made a lot of\nspeeches that our fellows didn't particularly like, but that was sort of\nan understood procedure; he could do that; it didn't hurt us very much\n3/14/54: Reel 3, Track 1, Page 3\nbecause there were others who were-I think there were others in the\nLegal Committee and other committees who might be allowed to have more\ninfluence than we were sometimes inclined to let them have.\nMR. JESSUP:\nI think that's true, because our individual representative in the Sixth\nor Fourth Committee, for example, feels that he's got a personal point of\nprestige to win for the United States in that place.\nMR. NITZE:\nDoesn't this run counter to what you were saying about the human rights\nthing? It was in the human rights thing that I think we said we didn't\nhave any objective, really, because..\nHARRY ARCHIVES& TRUMAN \"NATIONAL RECORDS LIDRANY\nVOICE:\nWell, that's true.\nADMINT\nMR. NITZE:\nAnd so we let Mrs. Roosevelt and her friends go forward on this.\nMR. RUSK:\nWell, I think I have to add a postscript to Phil's comment on the human\nrights situation. When the people in the Department raised serious ques-\ntions about whether we should proceed from a Declaration of Human Rights\nto a Covenant, Mrs. Roosevelt called on Mr. Truman, and Mr. Truman sucket\ntold her to go ahead with a Covenant.\nMR. ACHESON:\nThat's where you get into trouble. Phil, now we have to back a little bit\nof this\nin your analysis/ahmuck thing about the UN. It seems to me that the things\nthat you are mentioning fall into two categories. One-I think one cate-\ngory is things which we should have been thinking about all the time but\ndon't think about because there are so many more important things, and\nthese are brought to our attention by the UN but enough work has not been\ndone on them, etc. Now, in that category the UN may perform a useful\nfunction by shocking us every once in a while into thinking about things\nthat we haven't thought about. I am not sure I agree with that, but let's\nsay it's a possibility and come back and talk about it in a moment. Now,\nthe other category are things which are really of no importance and on\nwhich we have to take positions, or at least we may have to take positions,\nand therefore to work on all these things is to detract your attention\n3/14/54: Reel 3, Track 1, Page 4\nfrom really important matters that you ought to be thinking about. One\nof them is this Covenant-we never should have gotten interested in that.\nNow, maybe we should spend as much time avoiding trouble as we do on try-\ning to move ahead; but it's throwing that sort of difficulty into the works\nthat I find it very hard to see how you can ever improve your position by\nvery hard work on something which is fundamentally unproductive. We ought\nnot to have gotten into the Covenant of Human Rights. Now, clearly some-\nbody should have toddos tackled this when Mrs. Roosevelt or Mr. Truman\nwarned him about it. It's the sort of thing that the President would say,\n\"Why, sure, it looks as if it's a wonderful idea; what's wrong about it?\"\nAnd yet there's everything wrong about it; it doesn't make any sense at\nall. Well, now on your other-your first group-let's take these: Tunis\nand Morocco. Maybe we should be spending a lot of time on how in the\nHARRI U.S. NATIONAL ARCHIVES& RECORDS GOVERNMENT LIDRARY\nworld to handle all that part of the world which is-I am sure we ought\nto worry about thecolonial question and things of that sort. This has\nto do with propaganda and on presenting our position, but I should think\nthat the ultimate decisions that you come down to are faily clear. Well,\nyou can elaborate the argument; you will have the Middle East and African\nboys telling you that the Arab world is very important-you've got to do\nthat. You have other people saying that the real center of your alliance\nis going to be knocked to pieces if you do this.\nMR. JESSUP:\nBut don't you think-take two instances in which it seems to me we had to\nmake decisions where they weren't very clear; one was in Indonesia, where\nwe spent a lot of time back and forth, first on the Dutch side and then\non the Indonesian side and ultimately, I think, largely on the Indonesian\nside because of a conviction that the Dutch, although they wouldn't admit\nit, would be ruined if they attempted to amintain a military action in\nIndonesia. Their economy simply could not хрик stand that expenditure, so\n3/14/54: Reel 3, Track 1, Page 5\nthat actually I've always felt we really helped the Dutch by knocking\nproposition\nthem down on their Indonesian/poxition. At the same time, in terms of our\nworld position, I think that was an appropriate move to make. Now, in\nthe Tunis and Morocco business, you had to spend a lot of time; and\nfinally, as I remember it, you had to throw everybody out and say, \"Well,\nnow I see your points of view, and now I'll make the decision.\" Remember\n?\nthat? On the Russian resistance to domestic jurisdiction, where we had\na fight against putting it on the agenda, and we took one position of\nputting it on the agenda of the Security Council and another of putting\nit on the agenda of the General Assembly. We really did have a great\ndeal of difficulty in making our decisions there; and in the end I think\nthere wasn't any escape, as I bhink I said in my letter to you, from the\nHARRYS TRUMAN -VATHONAL RECORDS ADMIN LIBRARY\ndecision we made. But actually that thing had been boiling up for some\ntime in the recesses of the Fourth Committee and the Trusteeship Council.\nAnd we really hadn't taken account of the fact that it was going to come\nto a head, even after the experience in Paris, when you succeeded in keeping\nthe Moroccan issue off the agenda there. We really didn't alert ourselves\nto the fact that this was going to be a continuing problem. Now you did--\nyou remember you had your long discussion with the total French Cabinet\non the Morocan and Tunis question, and they were all there in the Pinay\ngovernment, and I think we made some progress with them there. And we\nhad somewhat the same thing from '49 on with the French dn Indochina.\nAgain I think we were serving them well in urging them to cut their commit-\nment, that they were getting themselves in an impossible position, and that\nthey had to find a way out. There our interest of making a gesture to\nnationalism sort of coincided with what I think was the correct interpre-\ntation of French interests. I think we saw before the French did that they\nwere really through there, and they might as well liquidate their position.\nMR. ACHESON:\nWell, I agree that as long as you have this UN and you've got these problems\nthat people can throw at you, we'd better do a lot more work a lot earlier\n3/14/54: Reel 3, Track 1, Page 6\nthan we do. But I am still puzzled as to how we can all work with all\nthe thought and everything else we can put on it how we can improve the--\nhow we can do a better job in the UN, because the thing is almost calcu-\nlated to be such that no one can do a good job.\nMR. NITZE:\nWell, I was just recollecting the various things which we did do. I remem-\nber the period when there was a committee under your chairmanship which\ngot into this question of the relationship betwen the African problems\nand the Europem problems, and tried to develop positions on all the various\naspects of this thing. Well, I think that this was ureful, but I am not\nsure that we really advanced the ball too far, because we were still left\nin a position where you Knew perfectly well what was going to happen to\nyou vis-a-vis the Asisan countries-you weren't doing enough for the Asian\ncountries; you knew you were not doing enough to put yourself clearly in\na favorable position with the European countries. You knew there were\ndangers in straddling the issues-that you were going to get hated from\nUS ARCHIVESA -NATIONAL RECORDA TRUMAN CHRANA\nboth sides, but you knew that you couldn't do anything else but, so that\nwhen we got through with the whole thing we still were in the same unsatis-\nfactory position that we started on. And I think that it was worthwhile,\nhaving done that preliminary work; but I don't think just by pre-work on\nthese issues that you avoid what are really inherently just nasty problems.\nThey are still nasty when you get through with them.\nMR. RUSK:\nMy boss in the State Department may not have seen any evidence of this,\nabout\nbut/once a month I used to sit down and write out a little topical list\nof the things that I thought I ought to be worrying about, and they'd\nrun to about 60 or 70 each month-you see them on that yellow sheet of\npaper. And the interesting thing about that was to look back to a list\nthat had been made up about nine months before to see how many of those\nthings, how many of those problems had changed their shape, and how many\nof them sort of tended to disappear, even though you didn't do much about\nit, if anything about it. And that suggested to me that one of the prob-\n3/14/54: Reel 3, Track 1, Page 7\nlems about the UN-there are times when the UN clearly provides a pro-\ncedure for taking some of the fever out of the situation. The Berlin case\nto me was a good example of that. Had we not had a commitment to put that\nkind of a case before the UN; had we not been able to put our own pres-\ntige more or less in the icebox of the UN during that period and had to\nface squarely up to the issue-do we fight a war over this or accept this\nact of force by the Soviet Union-there might well have been a war. I\nmean there's a case where it acts as a poultice on a difficult situation.\nBut there were many, many other occasions-I suspect these are in the\nmajority--where issues may be inflamed rather than settled down by debate\nin the UN. Take the Indians and the South African situation-it comes\nHARRY TRUMAN NATIONAL ARCHIVES& RECORDS ADMIN.\" LIBRARY\nup every year for discussion, you see-and so many others which do not\nCOVERNMENT\nhave in them the inherent trouble, but which are subject to for each---\nsometimes for personal considerations only-which are subject to being\ninflamed by debate in the UN.\nMR. ACHESON:\nThe thing that I was trying to provoke Phil into exposing himself on is\nthat he has said, \"There's something wrong here, because generally speaking\nwe go into a UN General Assembly meeting-certainly maybe the last two-\nwe have gone into the meetings and come out with a lessened prestige and\na lessened position of leadership in the world than we had when we started.2\nIsn't that true?\nMR. NITZE:\nWèll, I think I said here, or meant to say, that I think on the last one\nin 152 that the victory on the Korean thing boosted us up.\nMR. ACHESON:\nYou said that; that's right, in your letter...\nMR. NITZE:\nThe earlier ones I wasn't sure that that was true. That was the case-but\nit illustrates my other principle that, when it does get top level con-\nsideration and that when you work it through in the UN, making the UN\nGeneral Assembly a matter of great importance to hold your position there,\nthen you get productive results.\nDR. OPPENHEIMER: And when the Russians help you.\n3/14/54: Reel 3, Track 1, Page 8\nMR. ACHESO N:\nWell, what I was wanting to continually press you into is, that where you\nhave a matter in which we have a deep interest, then if we are any good\nand have a good case and work hard on it, we are likely to do ourselves\nsome goodl But the problem, as I see it, is that there are a great many\nof these situations where we don't have an interest except in not dealing\nwith it in this way and that therefore I don't see how we can come out of\nthose problems with anything except some rather bedraggled feathers.\nDR. OPPENHEIMER: Isn't perhaps some gradual limitation in the understanding of what our\nleadership should be the right answer to that; that our leadership doesn't\nmean that we can and should deal forcefully with the problems that\nshouldn't be dealt with forcefully? That we can't and shouldn't deal\nwith problems in which we have little power and not reasonably too much\nHARRY U.S. ARCHIVES.,* \"NATROMAL GOVERNMENT RECORDS ADWAR\"\ninfluence? That is, isn't the notion of world leadership a little too\nbroad for even the good old United States?\nMR. RUSK:\nThat may be, Dr. Oppenheimer. For two or three years there we were going\ninto the General Assembly each year with a great sort of single...\nDR. OPPENHEIMER: Campaign\nMR. RUSK:\nSlogan, almost like the Nuremburg Congress. One year it was the Little\nAssembly; another year it was the united-for-peace resolution; and the\nstaff fellows were always saying, \"Now, what's going to be our theme this\nyear?\" And just before I left the UN I said, \"Why don't we relax on one\nor two Assemblies and just sort of go and be there?\" you see. And I\nwas-and I had some doubts along the lines that you were talking about.\nBut on the other hand you can't take that very far, because if you don't\nexercise leadership the Assembly is likely to go off into all sorts of\ndirections, and the result of that on your own policy and your own standing\nmay be worse than if you had tried to exercise leadership. I recall\nthat at one time...\n3/14/54: Reel 3, Track 1, Page 9\nDR. OPPENHEIMER: I didn't advocate not exercising leadership, but confining it to those\nthemes where...\nMR. RUSK:\nYou were required to state a position, because of this voting situation,\neven on the unimportant things; and when you state a position you get\ninvolved in just the same problems as though you had tried to exercise\nleadership. I remember talking about it at Lake Success one day-from our\ndelegate there saying, \"We are about to elect a subcommittee\" on something\nor other--a matter of no importance to us at all-\"for whom shall we vote?\"\nAnd I said, \"Oh, heavens, relax; just let them elect somebody for a change.\nNow just let them do it, you see. There were about fifteen votes being\ncast. Well, about ten minutes later he called back and said, \"Well, what\ndo we do now? There are four votes for; there are four votes against,\nHARRY U.S. For GOVERNMENT \"NATIONAL ARCHIVES.,2. RECORDS ADMIN\" LEORARY\nand six of them are withholding their votes until the United States votes.\"\nIn other words, there is a point at which you just can't escape taking a\npretty active part in the situation, or it just goes all to pieces.\nMR. JESSUP:\nThat is the thing that impresses me-that for good or ill, the thing is\nthere and you get thrown into these difficulties. And, as Dean says, if\nyou try to sit back, that in itself just is an abstention and has a very\npositive effect. People interpret that...\nMR. RUSK:\nThey get irritated and vexed about it. They get made at you if you try\nto sit down.\nMR. ACHESON:\nThen, of course, our own public and the press put you into a fix. They\ngive you plenty of hell about Morocco and Tunis, and we get all steamed up.\nMR. RUSK:\nOf course, there is another problem that is involved in this multilateral\ndiplomacy business: and that is the procedure by which the United States\nGovernment comes to its own conclusions on important matters is so complex\nand takes so much time that it is very difficult to fit those procedures\ninto preliminary consultation with your principal friends at the same\ntime. By the time you get the other executive departments lined up and\n3/14/54: Reel 3, Track 1, Page 10\nthe congressional committees lined up and the White House lined up and all\nthat sort of thing, you have exhausted so much energy that if you wait\nuntil that point to go out and consult some of your friends and they have\ncertain suggestions to make, it just isn't worth it-to go back and undo\neverything you've done before--and you find yourself in a rigid position.\nNow, I don't know to what extent there was previous consultation with the\nBritish or the Canadians on this issue that we were discussing earlier,\nbut it seems to me that it is rather surprising if we knew that the British\nwere of f on this tangent for the first time when we got in the General\nAssembly.\nMR. ACHESON:\nWell, the whole business of non-forceable return had been discussed for\nmonths and months, and they were solid on that.\nMR. RUSK:\nBut the idea of postponing the decision as to what happened with respect\nTRUMAN\nto those who did not want to be returned-this had been discussed, too.\nHARRY U.S. NATIONAL ARCHIVES ONVERNMENT RECORDS ADMIN- LIBRARY\nIt had been raised by the British; it had been in the papers; it was in\nthe Daily Worker; do you remember there was the Hennigan (sp?) proposal\nand so forth and so on. So that this was being bruited about; we knew\nthat most of our allies were prepared to take the position of postponing\nit, of fuzzing up what happened to the non-repatriates. But here we've\ncome to a position where the US Government decides, \"No, this is not what\nwe're going to do; we're not going to be for fuzzing it up.\" So then\nyou've go to take your allies along as best you can.\nDR. OPPENHEIMER: Is there any reasonable hope that the agenda of the Assembly could be sub-\nject to some control-that is, that it require a vote of some kind before\nan item could be included on the agenda?\nMR. RUSK:\nIt does now.\nDR. OPPENHEIMER: But it doesn't do any good.\nMR. RUSK:\nThe tradition is that everybody has a chance to speak his piece.\nMR. ACHESON:\nThe fellows who are responsible for the fact that (?) we got ourselves\ninto this mess.\n3/14/54: Reel 3, Track 1, Page 11\nMR. RUSK:\nI remember Ferguson wrote some paper on this very subject as to the\nposition we ought to take on including items on the agenda. I forget\nwhat the substance of that paper was; do you remember it, Phil?\nMR. JESSUP:\nIt may have been Tunis-Morocco.\nMR. RUSK:\nIt grew out of the Tunis-Morocco thing; but it went into it at great\nlength and came out with a considered position on all the various alter-\nnatives and with recommendations as to what you ought to do here, there\nand the other place. And I think it did include the position that we\nought to be against the inclusion of certain mischievous items. That\nwe ought to abandon this position of being for free discussion of every-\nthing; that we ought to apply a standard to it.\nMR. JESSUP:\nI think one difficulty in that is that the way the thing is run now the\nitem is discussed anyhow. It may be discussed merely in the preliminary\nWARRY \"WATHYAL amounts& REQUIRIDS ADMIN- LIBRARY\ndebate as to whether you put it on the agenda, but you don't escape the\ndiscussion of it. If somebody proposed it, then you've got to talk about\nit. You've got to say, \"Well, we're for putting it on or against putting\nit on.\" You had that particularly in Tunis-Morocco in the Security\nCouncil, where all the Arab nations aired the whole thing, where we had\nto sit like a bump on a log or say something about it, even though the\nwhole issue was on a vote of \"Will you put it on the agenda.\" And that\nwent on for days-the debate in the Security Council on the issue of whether\nit would go on the agenda. So that you don't avoid the necessity of\ntaking the position merely by saying that you are finally going to vote\nto keep it off the agenda.\nMR. RUSK:\nIt seems to me that there might be a real advantage in giving the General\nCommittee of the General Assembyy more of a choice about what to do with\nthe item. Now they are simply confronted with the idea of whether you\nhear about it or not, and, if so, which committee. And that means sending\nit to the committee for debate. Would it not be helpful to have something\n3/14/54: Reel 3, Track 1, Page 12\nlike a committee on negotiation, to which the General Committee might\nsend certain items for the purpose of having them explored privately\namong the parties and having it discussed not in terms of debate but in\nterms of negotiation for a period before it in comes out for public debate.\nThe League of Nations had a much better procedure for negotiating out things\nahead of debate than the United Nations has; and it seems to me that some-\nthing could be said for some device whereby either the Secretary General\nor some small Committee might undertake to explore the situation before\nit gets to the floor for debate.\nDR. oppenheimer: Aren't most of the items that are mischievous items in which negotiation\nprobably\nhas/failed in the past and probably will continue to fail? The Tunis-\nMorocco one, I should think.\nMR. NITZE:\nWell, at the time when this came up, negotiations were going on and the\nFrench were trying to get together on positions.\nMR. ACHESON:\nDid that come up in '53-Tunis and Morocco?\nHARRY ARGHIVES& NATIONAL RECORDS ADMIN-\nU.S.\nVOICE:\nI think generally--yes.\nOOVERNMENT\nMR. JESSUP:\nYes; they passed a little stronger resolution than last year. It was\nlike yourcase before, where you start at the place where you number ended\nbefore and then you have to give in a little bit more. I think in 152\nwe said we, were sure that France would do the best it could. I think\nin '53 they said France had better jolly well do the best it could, and\nthat was the progression.\nMR. RUSK:\nYou see,-Dr. Oppenheimer, it may be quite true that some of these issues\nhave been subject to negotiation without success; but still much could be\nsaid for putting pressure on the interested parties to stay in the frame-\nwork of negotiation, rather than being allowed to jump into the framework\nof international debate. And there have been times when we have been\nable to press people to stay in the framework of negotiation-the Dutch\nand Indonesians over this West New Guinea thing, for example.\n3/14/54: Reel 3, Track 1, Page 13\nMR. JESSUP:\nWell, I don't want to get away from this particular point, but just while\nI think of it I'd like to throw in another point, which I've always\nthought was important in connection with the UN and which I think we\ndeveloped very well in 152. That is that it is an opportunity to deal\nwith many of the Foreign Ministers, occasionally a Prime Minister, at\nleast with the top people from a lot of different countries. You pick up\na lot of things that are not necessarily on the agenda. It nearly killed\nyou in 152-we scheduled something like 46 conferences for you with all\nthe Foreign Ministers who were coming.\nMR. ACHESON:\nIt certainly did.\nMR. JESSUP:\nIthink that is extremely useful. I always felt that we used the UN\ncontacts too little in terms of our general diplomacy, and with many coun-\nHARRY archivis. \"NATIONAL RECORDS ADMINT\ntries you can't do it because the representative isn't good enough. But\nUS\nwith many other countries the representative is an influential power at\nhome, particularly with the smaller countries. I think that kind of\ndaily contact is frequently more xp productive than the contact through\nthe channels in W_shington.\nMR. RUSK:\nThere is another little problem about this multilateral technique that is\ninteresting. If you have an Assembly where there are 70 items and there\nare 56 countries outside the Soviet bloc whose support you moodx would like\nto have for your view on each one of those 70 items, your negotiators run\ninto the fact that each one of the 56 countries have their own complex\nof relations whickk with the Soviet Union involving all sorts-I mean the\nUnited States-involving all sorts of things. Now, you run into an attempt\nmany times to connect any one of these 70 items with any one of the other\nquestions that these countries have up with the United States; the classical\nexample was the remark passed to us from the Argentine delegation during\nthe Berlin blockage discussions of the Security Council-the Argentine\nthen being the President of the Council--that the Argentine government\n3/14/54: Reel 3, Track 1, Page 14\nfelt it could be helpful to us in the Berlin blockade issue if we could\ndo something about the price of wheat.\nMR. ACHESON:\nThat comes up all the time, particularly when the people at the UN tele-\ngraph or send to Washington and say, \"Go to your Embassy and twist the\narm of this, that and the other country.\" You always have to pay something\nfor doing that.\nVOICE:\nSure.\nMR. RUSK:\nSo it's very hard to work out these classical diplomatic trades with this\nmany combinations, you see, working on a situation of that sort.\nMR. JESSUP:\nIt's exactly the same kind of thing you get in Congress with your various\npressure groups-get the sugar beet fellow to vote for one fellow, if\nyou're going to vote for him on his tariff bill.\nMR. RUSK:\nOr you get Carroll Reese's vote in the Rules Committee on the Excess\nProfits Tax in exchange for some votes for his resolution to investigate\nfoundations.\nMR. ROSENAU:\nCould I perhaps ask a very naive question, going back to this agenda busi-\nness. You mentioned arlier the sort of gentlemen's agreement with Romulo.\nMARHT TRUMAN, U.S.\nWould it be naive to say that perhaps this might be done with the French,\nsay, on the Tunisian issue, that they know we're talking this way but we\nstill have our European commitments?\nMR. ACHESON:\nThat does not work.\nMR. RUSK:\nNo; this is too important to the French. The substance is too important,\nI think, in that case.\nMR. JESSUP:\nTheir argument on that was-I think they were right-that on the North\nAfrican questions there really was an aroused opinion in France and that,\nif we took a position,w would be jumped on in France and they could not\ncome to our defense against French opinion and that you would really get\ninto a first-class row. Your kind of thing was the famous historical\nincident, wasn't it in 1920, when somebody from the Republican Committee\nwent around to the British Embassy and said, \"Now, we've got a campaign\n3/14/54: Reel 3, Track 1, Page 15\ncoming on; you know we've got to twist the lion's tail a good deal\nduring the campaign, but it doesn't mean anything. When we're elected\nwe'll get along fine.\"\nMR. ACHESON:\nI didn't know..\nMR. RUSK:\nOf course, another point that is involved here is that the American public\nare so used to sitting in the bleachers at Yankee Stadium and football\nstadiums expecting you to win everything you go out for they don't under-\nstand what a concession means, even to your friends; and they are inclined\nto equate concession to a friend as appeasement to anything. And we haven't\ngotten sufficent public understanding of what this process is like, inIn\ngetting along with people. We have different views and different national\ninterests, perfectly legitimate differences in national abblex interests,\nin trying to find some common ground\n(END OF TAPE)\nHARRY TRUMAN VATIONAL ARECHIVES OOVERNMENT LIBRARY\nU.S."
}