UNA Files

The Acting Secretary of State (Stettinius) to the President 1

secret

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]
[Attachment]

List of Nations Which Participated in Hot Springs, UNRRA and Bretton Woods Conferences

United Nations

Australia Iran
Belgium Iraq
Bolivia Liberia
Brazil Luxembourg
Canada Mexico
China Netherlands
Colombia New Zealand
Costa Rica Nicaragua
Cuba Norway
Czechoslovakia Panama
Dominican Republic Philippine Commonwealth
El Salvador Poland
Ethiopia Union of South Africa
Greece U. S. S. R.
Guatemala U. K.
Haiti U. S. A.
Honduras Yugoslavia
India

States or Authorities Associated with the United Nations in the War

Chile Iceland
Ecuador Paraguay
Egypt Peru
French Committee of National Liberation Uruguay
Venezuela

Observers

Danish Minister at Washington, attending in a personal capacity

  1. Printed from an unsigned copy typed in the Department of State; authorship not indicated.