500.CC/11–544
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Chief of the Division of Eastern European Affairs (Bohlen)
| Participants: | The American Ambassador, Kay Atherton, Norman Robertson, Undersecretary of State for External Affairs, |
| Charles E. Bohlen. |
On Sunday morning34 Mr. Norman Robertson called at his request at the Embassy to discuss informally and personally with Mr. Atherton and Mr. Bohlen the Dumbarton Oaks proposals.
Mr. Robertson began by asking the Ambassador what in general was his impression of the general feeling of the American public in regard to United States participation in a world organization.
The Ambassador replied that it was his understanding that there was general support for American participation in an international organization provided that organization was world wide in its application and responsibility. He said he felt that neither the American Government nor the American people would consider favorably participation in any form of regional security organization which would be designed to consider only European problems and that it was for this reason that from the President down all American officials connected with the problems of international security had stressed the necessity of any organization being of a world wide nature.
In reply to Mr. Robertson’s question, Mr. Bohlen briefly outlined the considerations involved in the still unresolved question of voting in the Council. He mentioned that at the close of the Dumbarton talks the official Soviet position had been all decisions of the Council should be taken by a majority vote with the concurring votes in all cases of the permanent members; whereas the American and British position had remained that parties to a dispute should refrain from voting when that dispute was under consideration by the Council. Mr. Robertson inquired whether the so-called compromise suggestion,35 with which he seemed entirely familiar, had ever been officially advanced. Mr. Bohlen replied that this formula had merely been discussed informally among the technical experts and had never been [Page 934] officially presented by any one of the three Governments and in fact had never even been submitted to Moscow by the Soviet delegation.
Mr. Robertson then said that after careful study of the proposals Canadian thinking was that, as presented, they did not provide adequate representation for those countries other than the permanent members who would be required to contribute quotas of force to the international organization. He said that the proposals gave somewhat the appearance of attempting to perpetuate in the form of a permanent peace instrument the particular relationships which had grown up during the war between the great powers and their lesser allies. He said that since the Dumbarton Oaks proposals, correctly in his view, recognized the fact that nations possessing greater armed force bore a greater responsibility it would perhaps have been more desirable to have carried this principle through to its logical conclusion and provide for greater representation of those powers ranking immediately below the “great powers”. He mentioned parenthetically that he thought that even during the war it would perhaps be wiser to include the lesser active allies on such joint boards as the Combined Chiefs of Staff.36
Mr. Bohlen remarked that during the Dumbarton talks we had understood from the British that the Canadian Government had suggested that the six non-permanent seats in the Council be limited to those countries which would in fact provide quotas of force.
Mr. Robertson said that he was speaking in terms of general considerations rather than of a specific solution but that he did feel that the proposals as now drafted did not take into account sufficiently the role of the countries which lay between the great powers and those like Guatemala, for example, which possessed no military strength whatsoever.
Mr. Bohlen then remarked that it was his understanding that from the beginning of the studies which were made in the Department of State concerning a world security organization one of the chief problems was to reconcile the necessity for an effective and swift machinery for preserving the peace which could only be done by recognizing the greater responsibilities of the great powers with the principle of the sovereign equality of all nations large and small.37
Mr. Robertson said that personally he thought it would perhaps have been better to have left unstated in the document the principle of the sovereign equality of all nations which the proposals themselves [Page 935] seem to contradict, and that perhaps a wiser solution would have been merely to continue the wartime association based on the leadership of the four principal Allies for the specific purpose of dealing with the defeated enemy countries and not attempt to present the wartime association in the guise of a permanent instrument for a permanent international organization. He continued that if an interim arrangement based on the wartime association had been decided upon, the lesser allies could and should have been drawn into the practical questions involved in the occupation and policing the enemy states and that at some date in the future an entirely fresh start, based on the experience gained, could be made towards producing a general international organization to preserve the peace.
Mr. Robertson dwelt at some length on the present desirability of giving a greater share of responsibility in matters affecting Germany in particular to the lesser continental Allies. He said he thought it had been a mistake not to include in the beginning representatives of the European Allies in the discussions of the EAC,38 and he thought it would be greatly to the advantage of both Great Britain and the United States if these continental Allies were encouraged in every way to take an increasing part in the future occupation of Germany. In this connection Mr. Robertson said that he had felt that both in London and in Washington there was a tendency to refer dealings on what he called the unitary basis; that is that Great Britain would speak for the Commonwealth and the United States for Latin America. He said that last May at the Commonwealth Conference39 in London Churchill had strongly urged that the members of the British Commonwealth should decide among themselves what their joint position was to be and that the British Government should then speak for the whole Commonwealth. Mr. Robertson said that the Canadian Government backed by New Zealand and South Africa had taken strong positions against this suggestion and contended that it was wiser from every point of view for the Dominion Governments to deal directly with other governments even when there was an agreed Commonwealth position. He said that in the end Mr. Churchill had withdrawn his proposals on this point.
Perhaps because of the general feeling that the Dumbarton Oaks proposals as a whole did not give adequate representation to the medium powers, Mr. Robertson did not express any clear views one way or another on the question of voting in the Council, although he did express interest in the possibility of Russian acceptance of the compromise proposal.
[Page 936]In connection with the compromise proposal there was some discussion as to the possible necessity, in order to meet the Russian view, of leaving for an unspecified number of years the European territorial settlements exempt from review or consideration by the international organization. On this subject Mr. Robertson seemed to feel that some of the proposed European settlements such as the extension of the Polish western frontier to the Oder and the Dutch claim to German territory would require strong guarantees from the international organization in order to be maintained.
The conversation, which lasted well over an hour, appeared to reflect Canadian disappointment that Canada, although possessing an appreciable military force, had been placed in the same category as the weakest and most insignificant countries in the world and also Canadian reluctance to be regarded as merely a part of the British Empire.
- November 5.↩
- Dated September 13, p. 805.↩
- For documentation relating to the formation of the Combined Chiefs of Staff, consisting of senior United States and British officers, see the records of the First Washington (Arcadia) Conference, December 22, 1941–January 14, 1942, to be published in a subsequent volume of Foreign Relations.↩
- See Postwar Foreign Policy Preparation, 1939–1945, pp. 24–25, 88–90, 101–102, 108–114, and 266–288, passim; The Memoirs of Cordell Hull, vol. ii (New York, the Macmillan Company, 1948), pp. 1686–1689.↩
- European Advisory Commission. The decision to create this body was made at the Tripartite Conference of Foreign Ministers, held in Moscow, October 18–November 1, 1943. For correspondence concerning this Commission, see Foreign Relations, 1943, vol. i, pp. 801 ff., and ante, pp. 1 ff.↩
- The Conference of Dominion Premiers was held in London, May 1–16, 1944.↩