Foreign Relations of the United States, 1946, General; the United Nations, Volume I

IO Flies: SD/S/111

Department of State Position Paper⁴⁰

secret

[Washington,] March 22, 1946.

U.S. Position Toward Membership Applications During Coming Security Council Meetings

1. We should favor a motion to postpone, until a meeting in August, consideration of the Albanian application and any other application received before that time, since

(a) the admission of Albania or any other applicant State could not possibly take place until final approval of the application by the General Assembly at its meeting in September, and

(b) the Security Council should make provision for considering not only the one application now before it, but all applications that may be presented within a reasonable time.

To provide now for action upon such application at a meeting during August, the exact date to be fixed later on, would establish a general and reasonable procedure by which the Security Council could give the membership problem as a whole the careful consideration which it warrants, and by which all States that desire membership can prepare and present applications without any State necessarily suffering any delay in securing admission.

2. In prior discussions with representatives of other Security Council members, it should be indicated that our intentions are as stated above and that we would not be able to vote in favor of approval of the application. We should arrange, if possible, that a motion along the lines of (1) above should be made by some other member with assurance of our support.

3. In case such a motion should fail, we should maintain our position that action on the Albanian application should be postponed until a meeting in August. If necessary, in order to maintain this position, we should vote against any motion for approval of the application.

4. In the unlikely case that General Hoxha’s attitude should suddenly become such as to justify our support in principle and, further, that the motion to postpone should fail, we should favor the application.

40. Internal evidence indicates that this paper had been cleared through the Department by March 22. On that date it reached the office of the Secretary of State and by March 25 it had been passed on to the office of Mr. Stettinius (whether in Washington or in New York is not clear) “with a mere notation from the Secretary that it was for him [Stettinius]. … It was apparently transferred to Mr. Stettinius pursuant to the general intention that the Secretary should handle only the Iranian case.” (Memorandum by Mr. Sandifer, Chief of the Division of International Organization Affairs, to Alger Hiss, Director of the Office of Special Political Affairs, April 3, File No. 501.AA/4–346; this memorandum is printed in part infra).