Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers, 1944, General, Volume I

Lot 60–D 224, Box 59: Stettinius Diary

Extract From the Personal Diary of the Under Secretary of State (Stettinius)

Twenty-sixth Day, Monday, September 18, 1944.

Meeting with Gromyko and then with Gromyko and Cadogan⁷

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… I told Gromyko that we felt failure to reach agreement on voting would seriously jeopardize the acceptance of the plan by the American people and ratification of it by our Senate. In elaborating on the possible consequences to the Soviet Union, I told him that in our judgment if their position became known there would be a serious attack on them by the small nations over the world and also considerable anti-Soviet discussion in the American press. I told him in view of our happy relations with his Government that we would like to see both avoided. Gromyko took the position that if there had to be a break among the big four on this issue they might as well have the break right now rather than at some later conference. The Ambassador assured me that not only he but his Government as well understood the serious implications of this situation and that the whole international organization was at stake. He repeated, however, that he saw no possibility of a change of position on the part of his Government. He asked me if I was familiar with the message Stalin sent to the President and I replied in the affirmative and he said that that was the final word and spoke for itself. I appealed to him to reexamine the ten or twelve different possible solutions which had been considered by the Formulation Group. He said, “This is useless. None of the alternate proposals would ever be considered by my Government”. I asked him personally as to whether he felt there was any chance at all of change on the part of his Government and he replied that he thought there was no chance whatsoever. I inquired how long he thought it would take to hear from his Government on the proposed procedure for winding up the talks and he thought certainly not before tomorrow and possibly not before Wednesday. He did not venture in answer to my inquiries any opinion as to whether this procedure would be acceptable or whether the date of November 15th would be acceptable. I sounded him out informally on whether he thought our Foreign Ministers or our Chiefs of State could find a way out and he received this suggestion rather negatively. He then said, “You can’t have an international organization without us. We can’t have one without you. And there has to be unanimity between us and the other powerful states. The moment this principle of unanimity breaks down there is war, and it seems to me in view of that realistic situation that all this discussion of one or another solutions to the voting question is purely academic”. I reported in full this conversation to Mr. Hull later in the day.

Telephone Conversation with the Secretary.

After talking with Gromyko and Cadogan, I promptly called the Secretary on the phone and reported to him in detail on it. He expressed astonishment that they would be willing to let this one point stand in the way of full agreement on the international organization. He came back to the point he had made on Sunday that this must go down to the bottom of a lot of things, a lot of grievances and be more significant than merely Dumbarton Oaks. In view of this, the Secretary is thinking along the line that the President should make another appeal to Churchill and to Stalin. He thought we should make an attempt to get Gromyko’s comments in writing. I told him that I thought that might be embarrassing to Gromyko and suggested that maybe he would want to call Gromyko in and ask him to repeat to him directly what he had told me. I stressed to the Secretary that I had told both of them that we would have to make the opposition on the question public and said in answer to a question that I thought Cadogan felt as we did on that point. The Secretary asked that the American Group continue to study this problem in order that they might find something to save the situation. I told him that the American Group had been in continuous session all morning for just that purpose. The Secretary raised the question as to whether it would be wise to say to Gromyko and Cadogan that unless agreement was reached on this point it might be the end of the whole idea of the international organization and I explained that I had almost gone that far in my conversations this morning. He instructed me to definitely ask them each for their best proposal to keep the subject alive, which I told him I had already done but that I thought Gromyko was not trying to find any other solution and was simply standing on the position that his Government had taken its one, only and final stand. The Secretary agreed that we would have to make the whole situation public. He again stressed the importance he attached to a prompt discussion of the whole matter with the President.⁸

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7. Sir Alexander Cadogan joined the Ambassador and the Under Secretary for the last part of their meeting.
8. In accordance with Mr. Hull’s request during a late afternoon meeting, the Under Secretary reported by telephone the substance of his talk with Ambassador Gromyko to President Roosevelt at Hyde Park. (Diary, September 18, p. 12.)