Baghdad Pact

Extract

The Council of the Baghdad Pact, meeting on the ministerial level, convened in London on July 28, 1958. It was reported that during its two-day meeting, Secretary of State Dulles committed the United States to partnership in the pact with the United Kingdom, Turkey, Iran, and Pakistan. The United States' acceptance of obligations expressed in Article 1 of the pact was accompanied by an oral promise to increase military assistance to the three Asian members. According to the press, these two steps were considered “just as good” as signing a treaty. There were two considerations, according to one source, in the procedure adopted by the United States of agreeing to obligations to members of the pact instead of becoming a full member: 1) special military and economic agreements to be made could be made immediately under the joint resolution on the Middle East passed by both Houses of Congress in March 1957; if the United States had joined the pact as a full member, a new treaty would have been involved requiring the Senate's ratification; 2) the United States was not committed to make such special agreements with Iraq, since the latter did not sign the declaration issued by the Council following its meetings on July 28.