Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers, 1945, General: The United Nations, Volume I

500.CC/5–645: Telegram

The Chairman of the United States Delegation (Stettinius) to the Acting Secretary of State

San Francisco, May 6, 1945.
[Received May 6—4:09 a.m.]

1. The following is my daily message to the President, Mr. Hull and you on developments at the Conference.

• “1. Press conference. The full delegation held a large and successful press conference this morning⁵ at which I gave out three statements, one describing the joint amendments submitted to the conference by the four sponsoring powers, the second quoting the amendments submitted by the United States alone, and the third dealing with the arrest of the Polish underground leaders.⁶ The conference went off smoothly and the general impression seems to have been good on all counts.
• 2. Meeting with consultants.⁷ I also attended this morning a meeting of the consultants representing the various national organizations and took up with them the amendments submitted last night. There was on the whole general satisfaction with the position which the delegation had taken. Only two groups expressed some dissatisfaction, the C.I.O., which wished representation on the economic commission to be by representatives of organizations rather than by experts as provided in the present draft, and the educational groups which felt there should have been a separate commission on education.
• 3. Reconciliation of differences on amendments. The staff of the United States delegation is actively engaged in examining the amendments submitted by the various countries. Particular attention will be given to attempts to reconcile the remaining differences among the four sponsoring powers to whose consultations France will henceforth be added. The chiefs of these five delegations will meet Monday afternoon in my office for this purpose. I am very hopeful that we will reach agreement early next week on the two issues still remaining open among the sponsoring powers. As a matter of fact we missed agreement last night only by the narrowest margin.⁸ Agreement in principle had in fact been reached on a substitute provision the language of which has already been transmitted to you for that advanced by Senator Vandenberg originally relating to the review of treaties. The Senator believes that the new draft includes not only everything he had in mind but infinitely more. We were also extremely close to agreement on the paragraph on regional arrangements which has now been submitted as a separate United States amendment but at the last moment Molotov insisted that he would have to consult the French before giving definite assent.
• 4. Committees of the conference. The remaining committees of the conference met today and organized themselves.⁹ Most of them will commence substantive work on Monday.¹⁰
• One point of interest arose this morning in the committee having to do with the structures and procedures of the Security Council.¹¹ All of the delegates present except three spoke in favor of expanding the membership of the Council. The Soviet representative and Senator Connally both opposed the suggestion. Senator Connally quoted the text of the amendment on the composition of the Council agreed to by the sponsoring powers and it seemed to be generally felt that that amendment more or less met the arguments put forward by the other delegations.
• 5. Trusteeship. Commander Stassen held an informal meeting this afternoon with Senators Byrd, Eastland, Tobey, and Capehart of the Naval Affairs Committee and the military advisers of the delegation. The British and American trusteeship proposals were reviewed and the Senators were assured by the military that our security interests are adequately covered by our draft. The Senators seemed to be satisfied by these assurances.
• The five delegations now engaged in preliminary consultations in regard to trusteeship are meeting again this evening to consider the French draft on this subject.¹² The French and United States drafts appear to be more or less along the same lines.
• 6. Latin American attitudes. At a meeting today with one of the chief advisers of the United States delegation the chiefs of the Brazilian, Colombian, and Cuban delegations stated their views in regard to regional pacts.¹³ The conversation made it yet further evident that the other American Republics are insistent on greater freedom for the Inter-American system to act in matters of hemispheric concern. They do not for example wish to take [make?] action under the Act of Chapultepec dependent upon the veto of any one of the powers sitting on the Security Council. Strong sentiment exists for sharply restricting the scope of action of the general organization in this hemisphere and for permitting action under the Act of Chapultepec without authorization from the Council.
• 7. Supplementary information on amendments. Late this evening Molotov called at my apartment¹⁴ to say that the Soviet Government is now ready to concur in United States amendments on the two outstanding issues, i.e. (1) Authorization to the Assembly to recommend the adjustment of any situation whatever may be its origin likely to impair the general welfare and (2) the association of regional pacts having to do with aggressive states in the present war with the transitional arrangements referred to in Chapter XII of the Charter. I immediately informed Eden and Soong of this news which assures substantial agreement among all the sponsoring powers on the outstanding issues before the conference. This information should be held in a confidential status until Molotov himself makes the appropriate announcement.[”]

[

Stettinius

]

5. May 5.
6. For statements by the Secretary of State, see Department of State Bulletin, May 6, 1945, pp. 850 and 855–857; see also ibid., pp. 851–855, for texts of the amendments submitted by the four Sponsoring Powers and those submitted by the United States.
7. Minutes of meeting, May 5, 10:15 a.m., not printed.
8. See minutes of fifth Four-Power consultative meeting (parts 1 and 2), May 4, 6:30 p.m. and 10 p.m. pp. 603 and 610, respectively; reference Is to amendments to chapter V, section B, paragraph 6, and chapter VIII, section C, paragraph 2 of the Proposals.
9. For data on organizational meetings of Conference Committees, May 4 and 5, see Précis of Committee Proceedings, Nos. 1 and 2, May 5 and 6, Docs. 89 and 111, UNCIO Documents, vol. 2, pp. 331–335.
10. May 7; see Doc. 129, Précis No. 3, May 8, ibid., p. 336.
11. See summary report of the second meeting of Committee III/1, May 5, 10:40 a.m., Doc. 120, III/1/3, May 6, ibid., vol. 11, p. 252.
12. Minutes of Five-Power meeting, May 5, 5 p.m., not printed.
13. Memorandum of this particular meeting not found in Department files; for Assistant Secretary Rockefeller’s report to the United States delegation on his talks with Latin American Ministers on this subject, see minutes of the thirty-first meeting, May 7, 9 a.m. infra.
14. Saturday evening, May 5.