Confidential report from Frederick H. Boland to Seán Murphy (Dublin)
(Confidential)

The adjournment of the General Assembly for the Christmas recess affords me an opportunity for reviewing the work of the session up to date and placing on record some of the conclusions which we in the delegation have formed as a result of our first contact with the United Nations Organisation.

2. So far, of course, this Assembly has been completely overshadowed by the twin problems of Suez and Hungary. Within the past few weeks, however, there has been a marked shift in the respective degrees of importance attached to the two questions. Early in November, the general disposition was to regard Suez as a major world crisis and the Hungarian situation as an affair of relatively minor significance – hardly more important than the riots in Eastern Germany last year. Afro-Asian and other delegates actually complained in public that what were really only internal political disturbances in Hungary were being used as a smoke-screen to cloak the serious military aggression in Egypt. Some of them abstained from the votes on the early Hungarian resolutions to show their disapproval of what they regarded as simply a manoeuvre. An entirely different assessment prevails today. Reassured by the relatively prompt and successful action taken by the United Nations, people are more inclined nowadays to regard the attack on Egypt as simply a senseless and discreditable episode in the general chapter of Middle-Eastern strife and unrest. On the other hand, it is now generally realised that the events in Hungary, far from being merely isolated disorders, are the outward expression of a deep-rooted spirit of revolt which threatens the whole fabric of Communist totalitarianism, not only in the satellites, but even in Soviet Russia itself. The general view, indeed, is that Hungary is likely to prove a major turning point in world history.
3. It can fairly be claimed, I think, that Ireland played as large a part as any other delegation in insisting, from the very beginning, on the vital issues involved in the Hungarian situation and in forcing the question on the attention of the Assembly. When the United States, Britain and France first raised the question at the Security Council on the 28th October, we, in company with Spain, Italy and Turkey, took what the ‘New York Times’ called the ‘unprecedented step’ of writing to the Secretary-General supporting the initiative of the three Powers and urging that the Council should give the situation in Hungary its immediate attention.¹ When, in due course, the Security Council was brought to a full stop by the Soviet veto and the ‘Uniting for Peace’ resolution was used to bring the question before the Emergency Session of the Assembly, we co-sponsored the resolution calling on Soviet Russia to withdraw her troops from Hungary and to allow Hungary to choose her own government by free elections, and we spoke in favour of the resolution early in the debate. When the ordinary session opened, the Minister spoke about Hungary before the Assembly on two occasions – once on the question of the admission of Communist China² and again in his speech in the general debate³ to which I refer later. Since the Minister’s departure, we have continued to play an active and forward role in connection with the matter. I have spoken in two further Hungarian debates in the Assembly and we were one of the original sponsors of the final resolution condemning Soviet Russia for violation of the Charter. The sponsors of this resolution, headed by the United States, formed a caucus to decide policy and tactics and we played a prominent part in the discussions of this group with the result that the United States asked us to be one of the first four speakers when the resolution was introduced. The speech I made on this resolution on the 10th December attracted publicity in the ‘New York Times’, and ‘Wall Street Journal’, the ‘London Times’, ‘Time’ and other papers, and is popularly supposed here to have been responsible for driving the Hungarian delegates out of the Assembly and for their cancellation of a reception which they had arranged for a few days later. Communist sensitivity to our remarks was shown again a few days later when Mr. Zarubin,⁴ the Soviet Ambassador in Washington, intervened to protest sharply against Dr. Cruise O’Brien’s reference to ‘Soviet aggression in Hungary’ in a speech in the Special Political Committee.
4. Although it may sound callous to say so in the context of such an immense and appalling tragedy, the Hungarian crisis afforded us, as a new member participating in the work of the Assembly for the first time, just the kind of opportunity we needed. It gave us at once an issue on which we could, if not play a leading role, at least display some degree of initiative and leadership. It also helped us to establish, much more quickly than we could have otherwise done, close and confident relations with the delegations here who have the same sort of ideals as we have ourselves and who think as we do. Thanks to this, and to the development to which I am about to refer, I think it can fairly be claimed that Ireland already enjoys in the United Nations an unusual amount of goodwill and prestige for so small a country and for so recent an entrant into the organisation.
5. From our point of view, of course, by far and away the most important development during the first part of the Assembly’s session was the Minister’s speech in the general debate.⁵ It would be difficult to exaggerate the impression it made on the Assembly. One of the most experienced delegates in the Assembly (Senor Nunez-Portuondo of Cuba) described it as the best speech he had heard in the Assembly in ten years. Another (Senor Belaúnde of Peru) described it as being ‘d’une transcendence phenomenale’. It was, from every point of view, a most notable success. I have been trying since, by talking to people and listening to their opinions, to analyse in my own mind what precisely it was about the Minister’s speech which made so deep and so unanimous an impact on the United Nations Assembly. The question is important because, if we can be sure of the answer, we will have a valuable headline to follow in framing our future interventions in the Assembly. I am convinced from what I have heard that, apart from the admirably clear and sensitive language in which it was couched, what impressed people most about the Minister’s speech was the clarity of his ideas, the statesmanlike quality of the opinions he expressed and the tone of sincerity and moderation in which he spoke. I imagine that there were quite a few delegates in the Assembly who did not expect the Minister to make that kind of speech at all. They are the kind of people who think that we in Ireland are only concerned with Irish problems and grievances and that there is no Irish political oratory without vehemence. Even people in the Assembly whom I suspect of that prejudice freely admit that the Minister dealt in his speech with all the current issues of world politics more objectively, more perceptively and more sensibly than any other speaker in the general debate.
6. In the light of the foregoing conclusion, which I believe to be correct, I have been thinking over in my mind, and discussing with Dr. Cruise O’Brien, the kind of tactics we should adopt, not only at this Assembly, but in the future, with a view to maintaining the respect and prestige which the Minister won for the delegation by his speech in the general debate. In considering this question, the general conditions obtaining here have to be borne in mind. Most speeches made here, both in the plenary Assembly and at Committee meetings, are unbelievably commonplace and prolix. People who have nothing material or useful to contribute think nothing of making hour-long speeches in which lengthy recitals of well-known facts wrestle for pride of place with irrelevancies and far-fetched arguments on procedural or juridical points. People who go in for this sort of thing (like the delegate of El Salvador) inevitably end up by not being listened to at all. Their appearance at the rostrum becomes a signal for general conversation. We must make certain that we do not sink to that level. We must use a due tactical restraint, timing and styling our interventions carefully in such a way that people will always regard us as worth listening to. To achieve that aim, we should take as guiding principles (a) that we should never intervene at all unless we have a clear idea or ideas to express, (b) that brevity should be a constant and primary aim, (c) that, as a means of arresting and retaining attention, literary style should be a major consideration in the drafting of all speeches, and (d) that, generally speaking, a moderate, restrained tone is more effective than vehemence or over-emphasis. We feel that, by observing these simple and obvious rules, we can best assure that Ireland’s voice will always be listened to here with respect and attention.
7. Unpalatable as the statement must be, I must put it on record that, in my view, it will not be possible for Ireland to participate effectively in the annual session of the Assembly with a delegation of the size we have here at present. The staff needs cannot be accurately assessed simply by counting the number of Committees to be attended. As I am sure the Minister will confirm, the work of the Assembly is not merely a matter of sitting in at meetings. You must have one or two people free to roam the corridors, contacting the press, picking up news of the latest developments, talking with members of other delegations, etc. Nobody can do this kind of work and look after a Committee properly at the same time. On the other hand, if the work is not done, the delegation cannot keep abreast of events and is liable to find itself constantly surprised by developments which are known in advance to everyone except ourselves. All we have been able to do with our present resources is to look after the plenary Assembly and five of the seven Committees. We have ignored one Committee completely – the Fourth, which deals with Trusteeship matters – and we are inadequately staffed for the kind of lobby work which I have described.
8. We have gradually extended our contacts among the other delegations and are already on closest terms with almost all those of the Western European and Commonwealth countries and the United States. We have good friends in some of the Afro-Asian delegations – particularly those of Iraq, Pakistan, Sudan, India and Thailand – and also in the Latin-American group, especially Cuba, Peru and the Argentine. We need to extend the range of our contacts in these two groups, however, and we will try to do this after the recess. Considering that there are eighty delegations, numbering on average about ten members each, it takes time to get to know everybody.
9. The elections for the Security Council and ECOSOC⁶ furnished fresh evidence of the strength of the bloc system in the Assembly. It is a matter to which we may have to give closer attention in the near future. I hope to be able to make a submission with regard to it when we have somewhat more experience as to how the system works in practice.