RSC Lot 58–D 191
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Assistant Secretary of State (Dunn)
The Soviet Ambassador came in this morning to inform the Department of the number of persons in the Soviet Delegation to the San Francisco Conference. He said it was to be composed as follows: [Page 133]
- 10 delegates
- 12 advisers and experts
- 10 correspondents and cinema operators
- 90 assistants, secretaries, and staff, making a total of 122.
. . . . . . .
The Ambassador then went on to say that the number of persons which would compose the Ukrainian and White Russian Republics would amount to a total of thirty person I remarked that no invitation had been issued to the Ukrainian and White Russian Republics to attend the Conference and that no provision had been made for a delegation from those entities. The Ambassador then stated that according to the agreement made at the Crimean Conference,75 these two Republics were to be initial members of the International Organization, and that they would be expected therefore to be present at San Francisco and take their place among the participants in the drawing up of the charter. I said that I was not familiar with the details of any arrangement which might have been made at the Crimean Conference in this respect, but that in my own opinion if the two Republics were to be “initial members” of the new Organization, I did not myself see how that would justify their being present at the Conference at San Francisco as they could not be “initial members” of an organization until the organization was itself constituted; and that of course the International Organization would not be constituted and begin to function until at least a certain number of the signatories to the charter had had their adherence to the charter ratified according to their constitutional processes, and there had been an opportunity to convene the representatives of the states which had joined the Organization for the purpose of having its initial meeting. The Ambassador said that it was his understanding, and he believed that of his Government, that the agreement to consider these two Republics as having the right to “initial membership” entitled them to participate in the Conference at which the charter of the Organization would be drawn up. He asked whether the representatives of the governments at the Conference would not have full powers and would not be expected to sign the charter in the name of their governments. I said that that was our expectation, whereupon he gave as his opinion that initial membership involved the signing of the charter as an original member of the Organization and that it was therefore necessary for these two Republics to be present at the Conference to participate in the discussions leading to the conclusion of the instrument or statute founding the Organization and to exercise their rights as “initial members” of the Organization by signing the charter at San Francisco. [Page 134] I again stated that I myself could not see how it was possible to become a member of an organization until the organization was constituted; that it was after the organization was set up and functioning that the exercise of membership began; that the countries represented at the Conference would not necessarily all be members of the Organization; that it was conceivable that some countries present at the Conference would not ratify the adherence to the Organization indicated by the signature of their representative and therefore the act of participating in the Conference was not directly related to the question of membership; that they were two separate things. The Ambassador stated that in any event he had been instructed to inform us as to the size of the delegation from the Ukraine and White Russia and that the plans for attending the Conference included the sending of such personnel to San Francisco.
I explained to the Ambassador that I was not in a position to discuss this matter definitively with him, as I was not precisely informed with respect to the arrangement he had referred to and that I would be very glad to report to the Secretary the information he had given me and that he should consider that our conversation on the subject of the Representation of the two Republics was unofficial and informal and that any further discussion on the matter would have to be referred to the Secretary for clarification.
- Conferences at Malta and Yalta, p. 976; see also memorandum of March 19 by the Director of the Office of Special Political Affairs, ibid., p. 990.↩