UNA Files
The Acting Secretary of State (Stettinius) to the President 1
Memorandum for the President
Subject: Invitations to the Conference and Initial Membership
Background
There are two issues involved in this connection, as follows:
- 1.
- Should only the 35 United Nations be invited to the Conference and decide at the Conference who should be the additional initial members; or should invitations to the Conference be sent also to the nine so-called “associated” nations which participated in the Hot Springs, UNRRA, and Bretton Woods Conferences?
- 2.
- Should the sixteen Soviet Republics be admitted to initial membership?
The Soviet delegation took the position that only the signatories of the United Nations Declaration be invited to the Conference. They raised no objection to the inclusion by the Conference of other nations in the list of initial members, but placed themselves on record as insisting on the inclusion of the initial membership of the sixteen Soviet Republics.
In accordance with your instructions, we took the position that invitations should be sent to the forty-four nations which had been invited to the previous conferences (list attached) and that we could not accede to the Soviet demand for the inclusion of the sixteen republics as members of the organization.
The British and Chinese delegations supported our position fully in both respects.
Recommendation
It is recommended that
1. We take steps to induce the six American Republics now listed as “associated” nations (Chile, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela) to qualify as United Nations by declaring war on Japan or Germany, or both; and
2. Failing this, we continue to maintain the position taken at Dumbarton Oaks.
[Page 53]- Printed from an unsigned copy typed in the Department of State; authorship not indicated.↩