Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952–1954, Africa and South Asia, Volume XI, Part 1

320/10–852

Memorandum of Conversation, by the Assistant Secretary of State for United Nations Affairs (Hickerson)¹

secret

[Washington,] October 8, 1952.

Subject:

• South African Views on General Assembly Items.

Participants:

• Ambassador Jooste, South African Embassy
• Mr. J. S. F. Botha, Second Secretary, South African Embassy
• Mr. John D. Hickerson, UNA
• Mr. Paul Taylor, UNP
• Mr. Ward Allen, EUR
• Mr. Armistead Lee, BNA

Ambassador Jooste called, at his request, to discuss the forthcoming General Assembly. He indicated that he would like to have a brief talk with the Secretary some time next week in New York.

South African Candidacy for General Committee

[Here follows a discussion of the Union Government’s interest in the election of a South African Vice President on the General Assembly’s General Committee.]

Request for U.S. Position on Indian Resolution on Apartheid

The Ambassador asked whether I could tell him what the U.S. position would be on the new Indian item. I replied that our position was not yet definite, and that it was before the Secretary for consideration right now. I said that we were all extremely unhappy about this item and that the Secretary himself was deeply troubled. I could tell him, in strictest confidence, that the Legal Advisor had submitted an opinion to the effect that the Assembly was competent to discuss this question. We were aware, of course, that the British and French lawyers had reached an opposite conclusion. I said that I could envisage that in view of the sharp disagreement on the competency question, the best way out of the impasse might be to ask the ICJ for an advisory opinion on the application of Article II (7)—as we had tried to do in 1946 on the original Indian complaint. I said that I realized that this would not please South Africa, that it might not please Britain and France on the one hand, or India on the other, but that it might be the best way out. At least, it could buy some time.

Mr. Jooste said that if South Africa should get an adverse decision from the Court on this issue, it would mean the end of South Africa’s membership in the United Nations.

In response to my inquiry as to whether he really expected South Africa to withdraw from the UN on this issue, the Ambassador said that he was not sure just what his Government had in mind. Dr. Malan, in a speech a few days ago, had said that South Africa had a perfect right to withdraw from the United Nations and would not hesitate to do so if the UN persisted in interfering in her domestic affairs.

South African Position on UN Competency

Mr. Jooste then explained, with considerable feeling, his own and his Government’s views on the competency issue as it affected the new Indian item. If it were claimed that this matter was a “threat to the peace”, then any complaint against the domestic policies of any Government could be so stigmatized. This, he said, was a line of reasoning used just before World War II by certain countries as an excuse for aggression. The only other conceivable grounds for a claim of competency was that of human rights, but it was universally admitted, he said, that the Declaration of Human Rights was a statement of aims, not a binding treaty commitment.

He stressed that this was an issue on which the opposition in South Africa felt every bit as strongly as the Government, as was quite evident from Opposition press comment.

South Africa rejected, he said, the notion that mere discussion of a subject such as this did not constitute intervention. The evidence was all too clear of the incendiary effects within South Africa of UN discussion of their race relations in the past. The “race problems in South Africa”, he said, “are largely the creation of the United Nations.” It was a situation to which the General Assembly’s 1950 resolution against incitement to aggression² might well apply. The Defiance Campaign in South Africa is the product of just this sort of incitement. Even Manilal Gandhi, the son of the Mahatma,³ recognized it as a Communist-inspired movement and refused to have anything to do with it.

I replied that I could not comment, that I did not feel I had the answer to their problem. I said that I appreciated their difficult position, heavily outnumbered as they were by natives within the Union and in the rest of the continent. In my heart, I said, I felt that they were not following the right course, but I knew that this was their own problem, which they would have somehow to solve themselves.

Why, asked the Ambassador, should we invite the hostility of the rest of the world? We have no desire to suppress the natives, he said; on the contrary, we wish to raise them to a higher stage of culture, but we are convinced that this can only take place by means of separate development. He regretted the fact that because his Government could not compromise its position on the competency issue, he would be prevented from discussing the merits of the item in the GA because, he said, South Africa could make a very persuasive case on the merits. I expressed my own regret at hearing this. I explained that we had been urging the French to make a strong statement of their own case in Tunis and Morocco,⁴ after making it clear if they wished, that they had not changed their view of the Assembly’s lack of competence.

Summing up, Mr. Jooste said that the issue of General Committee membership, which he had raised at the outset, was minor by comparison with two main points he wished to leave with us:

(1) South Africa regarded the issue of Article II (7) as all important. It mattered little what some UN members said, but if the United States, with its record of objectivity, should say that on an issue such as this new Indian proposal that the Assembly was competent, despite the express understanding at San Francisco that Article II (2) had an overriding effect over the human rights clauses of the Charter, then South Africa would feel that she was without any protection.

(2) He recalled the Secretary’s expressed hope, the other evening, that at least the Southwest Africa issue might be settled in this session. He thought that the door could certainly be kept open, but all would depend on what happens with the new Asian-Arab accusation. In view of “this new threat”, the people of South Africa are in no mood to let the United Nations have any role in the Southwest. He hoped that this point could be conveyed to the Secretary. He (personally) was most anxious to keep the door open, and he took the occasion to mention that Mr. Gerig, the U.S. member of the Ad Hoc Committee, had been most understanding and helpful in trying to reach an area of agreement.

In my summing up, I reminded the Ambassador that I mentioned the Legal Advisor’s opinion in strict confidence. I recalled that the United States has always insisted that inscription of an item does not raise the issue of competency. I conclude by reviewing my reasons for favoring a reference to the Court as the best solution at this stage in a very difficult and embarrassing problem.

1. This memorandum was drafted by Lee (BNA).
2. Reference is to General Assembly Resolution 381 (V) which condemned “all propaganda against peace,” including “incitement to conflicts or acts of aggression.”
3. Mahatma Mohandas Gandhi, Indian leader who led a passive resistance campaign in South Africa during the early 20th century.
4. For documentation concerning U.S. interest in General Assembly consideration of the Moroccan and Tunisian items, see pp. 599 ff. and 665 ff.