UNA Files
The Acting Secretary of State ( Stettinius ) to the President 1
Memorandum for the President
Subject: Location of The United Nations Organization
Background
This question was not formally discussed at Dumbarton Oaks, although there were some exchanges of views. The Soviet delegation objected to Geneva. One of the Soviet delegates very informally suggested Prague. The British and the Chinese raised no objection to Geneva, but had no positive suggestions.
We had a group of our own working on the question. It is recommended that, while the Assembly, the Council, and the various conferences [Page 54] should meet in various parts of the world, the headquarters of the Organization should be in Europe. It also examined the following possibilities and recommended number 6:1. Prague; 2. Vienna; 3. Luxembourg; 4. Geneva; 5. An internationalized district in the vicinity of Lake Como; 6. An internationalized district comprising a strip of Swiss territory on which the League and the ILO buildings are located and the adjacent French territory of the Pays de Gex.
Recommendation
It is recommended that:
This government urge the proposal that the headquarters of the Organization be in an internationalized Swiss-French District as suggested above.
- Printed from an unsigned copy typed in the Department of State; authorship not indicated.↩