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

501.BC/5–746: Telegram

The Acting Secretary of State to the United States Representative at the United Nations (Stettinius)

secret

Washington, May 8, 1946—8 p.m.

55. Amdel. Reurtel 149, May 7. We feel the following considerations must be borne in mind in any delay in submission of proposed resolution on membership.

1. Secret summary (Urtel 152, May 7)⁶⁷ indicates considerable opposition to our rules of procedure. If rules are greatly altered in negotiation we are likely to be in unsatisfactory situation to introduce proposed resolution. Our hope has been that resolution might be agreed upon as special measure, if necessary by majority vote, even if our rules of procedure providing for regular procedure of submission of applications to committee failed of acceptance.⁶⁸

2. Even if substance of our rules is adopted our central objective will not be met of announcing positively by SC resolution that applications from non-members are welcome and that any received will be considered in August.

3. Also even if substance of rules is adopted they would not assure postponement of consideration of Albanian application by SC until August as would be assured by first paragraph of resolution. Rules would permit consideration of Albanian case by SC at any time and allow committee to report out Albanian case at any time. We prefer resolution to some more rigid permanent rule, as it would be undesirable to bind Council always to consider all applications only in month before GA meeting or bind it to refer all applications to a committee. On occasion we may want applications considered at another time of year and immediately by SC.

4. If agreement is reached on rules of procedure before resolution is introduced there is danger that many delegations may feel resolution is unnecessary. We will therefore have no assurances that stage is set for initiating our discussions with neutral states or that consideration of Albanian application will be postponed. Moreover our strategy for both these objectives will be vitiated.

5. If introduction of resolution is delayed SC may temporarily adjourn on disposition of Iranian question and resolution would thereby be further postponed. We would then have to delay our discussions with neutral states or initiate them without having support of SC resolution. We feel considerable time may be needed for these discussions and for talks with SC Members and time is beginning to run out.

6. We understand that Soviet Union has not been shown resolution. Since resolution supplements rules of procedure in important respects we feel Soviet Union might have grounds for considering that they were being misled as to our intentions if they agree to rules of procedure and are then faced with resolution. When given resolution they will in any case need some time for discussions with Moscow. We would prefer to have you show resolution immediately to Soviet Union so our full position is known to them.

In view of foregoing considerations we feel strongly that early action on resolution is important.⁶⁹ We will leave to your discretion timing of its discussion with Soviet Union and of its submission to SC.

Reurtel 152, May 7. We prefer reference of applications to committee of deputies of senior representatives rather than to committee of whole in private session, since committee of deputies can be more informal in consideration of questions, and private sessions of council are likely to excite adverse public comment.

Acheson

67. Not printed; see footnote 66, p. 383.
68. Mr. Stettinius was in fact reporting at this very moment (telegram 157, from New York, May 8, 8 p.m.) that the sub-committee of the Committee of Experts had “decided to recommend to the Committee a draft rule on admission taking care, as far as possible, of the various views.” The final results of a period of intensive committee and sub-committee work, May 8–13, were incorporated into Rule 56 (in its entirety) and Rule 57 (in part) of a set of provisional rules which the Committee of Experts recommended to the Security Council in document S/57, May 13. This is printed in SC, 1st yr., 1st series, Suppl. No. 2, pp. 20 ff., annex 1d.
69. The Department had already sent a draft statement for use in introducing the resolution in the Security Council (telegram 48, May 6, 8 p.m., 501.BC/5–646). Mr. Stettinius reported favorably on the prospects for passage of the draft U.S. resolution in his daily secret summary on May 10, and stated that the document was about to be transmitted to the Secretary General (telegram 165, May 10, 9:25 p.m., from New York (501.BC/5–1046)).