Editorial Note
In early January 1950 Adrian Pelt, the United Nations Commissioner in Libya, established his headquarters in Tripoli. His task was to cooperate with the administering powers in Libya, the United Kingdom, and France, to initiate steps for the transfer of power to a duly constituted Libyan Government and to promote the attainment of Libyan independence no later than January 1, 1952. Mr. Pelt was assisted in these tasks by the 10-member United Nations Advisory Council for Libya, of which the United States was a member. On January 20, 1950, Lewis Clark, a Foreign Service Officer of the Class of Career Minister, was designated United States Representative on the United Nations Advisory Council for Libya.
On January 19, 1950, the United Nations Trusteeship Council began sessions in New York, where one of its tasks was to consider a draft trusteeship agreement for Italian Somaliland to be negotiated with Italy by a subcommittee of the Trusteeship Council. The United States was a member of that subcommittee. The five-member United Nations Commission of Inquiry in Eritrea, of which the United States was not a member, met at Lake Success in early January to begin its work.
A summary of the work of the United Nations during 1950 with respect to the former Italian colonies in Africa is in United States Participation in the United Nations: Report by the President to the Congress for the Year 1950 (Department of State publication 4178, 1951), pages 83 ff. For a detailed account of the work of the United Nations Advisory Council for Libya and of the United Nations Commissioner in Libya, see Adrian Pelt, Libyan Independence and the United Nations: A Case of Planned Decolonization (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1970).