501.BB/12–446
Memorandum by the Director of the Office of Special Political Affairs (Hiss) to the Under Secretary of State (Acheson)
Mr. Dulles73 called me from New York this morning and said that he had just learned from Senator Austin that consideration was being given to our supporting the Netherlands for the Trusteeship Council. He said that he understood the background of this proposal and appreciated the motives which lead to it; however, he said that he thought it would completely destroy the chances of getting the Trusteeship Council established at this session for the following reasons:
The Soviets, the Chinese, the Indians and others have been asserting that the proposed trusteeship agreements are merely devices by which the colonial powers will make the trust territories colonial dependencies. Consequently their tendency is to defeat approval of the trusteeship agreements unless the administering powers agree to far-reaching amendments. The proposed administering powers, in turn, are clearly not willing to go very far in accepting major changes. The strength of our position has been our insistence upon the desirability of some form of trusteeship supervision which can only be accomplished if agreements are approved and the Trusteeship Council established. We have pointed out that unless the agreements are approved there will be no international supervision. This, we say, should not be [Page 244] satisfactory to those claiming to be the chief advocates of the interests of dependent peoples.
Mr. Dulles says that if word gets around that we are going to support the Netherlands for membership on the Trusteeship Council this would assure the Council having a majority of the colonial powers and would let the Soviet-Chinese-Indian bloc oppose the approval of the agreements more effectively on the ground that no good could be expected from creation of such a Trusteeship Council in any event. Mr. Dulles said he felt so strongly about this point that he might have to drop out of representing us on trusteeship matters if we were to support the Netherlands for the Trusteeship Council. He said he had only just heard the point this morning and that he feels Senator Austin now thoroughly understands his views.
I explained to him that the Senator had been discussing this very point with the Secretary and that I did not know what, if any, decision the Secretary had reached. He said that he would himself get in touch with the Secretary.
I pointed out to Mr. Dulles that the proposed Netherlands action in granting autonomy to the East Indies had seemed to remove much of the stigma of their being a colonial power. Mr. Dulles disagreed and said that in the work of the Trusteeship Committee of the General Assembly the Netherlands have supported the colonial powers 100 percent, much more so that [than?] we ourselves have. Consequently they are in the Assembly completely identified with the colonial powers.
I said that I would call his views to the attention of others in the Department.
Mr. Dulles added that at the moment, unless some such development as our committing ourselves to support the Netherlands for the Trusteeship Council occurs, he is optimistic as to the prospects of establishing the Trusteeship Council at this session. Consequently he considers the issue a real and current one.
- John Foster Dulles, Alternate Representative on the United States Delegation and Representative of the United States on the Fourth Committee of the General Assembly (Trusteeship).↩