Lot 60–D 224, Box 55: D.O./P.R./6
Memorandum by the Under Secretary of State (Stettinius) to the Secretary of State
Subject: Progress Report on Dumbarton Oaks Conversations—Seventh Day
Meetings or the Formulation Group on General Organization30
The formulation group of the Subcommittee on General Organization, meeting Monday and today, has reached tentative agreement on the following aspects of the International Organization:
I. Purposes
To maintain peace and security through effective collective measures for the prevention and suppression of threats to or breaches of the peace; to adjust or settle peacefully disputes which may lead to a breach of the peace; to develop friendly relations among nations; to serve as a center for harmonizing the action of nations for these ends. We and the British agreed that the Organization should achieve [Page 747] international cooperation on economic, social and technical matters, but the Soviet group, while constructively participating in discussion of this point, reserved judgment pending instructions.
II. Principles
The Organization will act in accordance with the following principles: the sovereign equality of all peace-loving states; fulfillment by all members of the obligations assumed in accordance with the basic instrument; settlement of all disputes by peaceful means not endangering peace and security; avoidance of the threat or use of force in any manner inconsistent with these purposes; and no assistance to a state against which preventive or enforcement action is being undertaken.
III. Membership
Membership should be open to the United Nations and all other peace-loving states; initial members should be the United Nations (the Soviet group reserves judgment as to whether “the nations associated with them” should be included31); states not initial members should be admitted individually after adoption of the basic instrument and in accordance with regulations in it.
IV. Principal Organs
An assembly, a council, an international court, a general secretariat, and such additional organs, councils, commissions or agencies as may be found necessary.
Meeting of the Joint Steering Committee
We reviewed and rather promptly reached agreement, with very minor revisions, on the draft statements of the formulation group, summarized above.
The ease and the dispatch with which agreement was reached on these matters was encouraging.
We also agreed easily upon the schedule of meetings to be followed tomorrow and the next day. The arrangements at which we have arrived for considering and disposing of the various matters under discussion seem to be working smoothly and effectively.
- The establishment of Formulation Groups for the Subcommittee on General Questions of International Organization and for the Subcommittee on Security Questions resulted from a decision by the Joint Steering Committee on August 25 to institute such a group for each of the two larger subcommittees, with responsibility for drafting specific proposals as the subcommittees reached general agreement of views. This decision was put into effect on the next Monday afternoon, August 28, when the two Groups met together for the first time; after a series of meetings together they lost their separate identity and became known as “the Formulation Group”. (Postwar Foreign Policy Preparation, pp. 307–308.)↩
- In course of discussion of the question of membership at the seventh meeting of the Joint Steering Committee, at 3 p.m. on August 29, Ambassador Gromyko questioned the phrase United Nations and “the nations associated with them”. Mr. Pasvolsky agreed to bring to the next meeting of the Committee a list of those countries which had taken part in recent conferences sponsored by the United Nations. He said that such a list would show that there were thirty-five United Nations and nine associated nations. (Minutes of meeting No. 7, p. 3.) For the list of nations, see pp. 757–758.↩