501.BB Summaries/11–846: Telegram

Senator Austin to the Secretary of State

secret
us urgent

[via Courier]

781. GA Secret Summary. SYG 83 Views on Contribution Scale. The SYG told Vandenberg after his [Vandenberg’s] speech on November [Page 473] 884 that he had decided to intervene in the debate on the contributions scale in support of the U. S. The Secretariat would be in an intolerable situation if any one country contributed half of the budget, Lie said.

U. K. Views on Contributions

Pitblado85 (U. K.) told USdel that he found the contributions scale generally satisfactory except that the Russians and Latin-American States were under-assessed and the British Commonwealth countries and the U. S. slightly over-assessed. Considering that new members would contribute slightly more than two per cent and that other States might be expected to bear a one-tenth increase in their contributions, he thought it would be possible to bring the U. S. figure down to forty-two per cent, subject to possible Soviet objection. He believed that any scale adopted might apply only for one year.

While Pitblado was not prepared to fix a figure for the U. S., he hoped that the time would not be very far off when one-fourth to one-third would represent a reasonable percentage based on the U. S. share of the world income. He said the U. K. would oppose a vote on the contributions question, believing the U. S. would be voted down. The U. K. view was that it would be an unfortunate precedent to establish a scale over the negative vote of any major country.

The U. K. representative stated that the British reaction to proposed UN scales, particularly if applied for only one year, would be conditioned by agreements reached with the U. S. on other items involving dollar exchange, such as the IRO and the U. K. share of the cost of German occupation. He added that it would be helpful to the U. K. if the IRO and UN contribution scales could be considered at the same time and inquired whether the U. S. would consider an increase in its proposed forty-three per cent contribution to the IRO.

Soviet Views on Contributions

After Vandenberg’s speech in Committee V on November 8, Geraschenko86 (U.S.S.R.) stated to USdel that “speaking as an individual” he was impressed by the U. S. position and would be prepared to support in his Delegation a reduction of the U. S. contribution to forty per cent or slightly less, assuming some method of spreading the reduction could be devised to keep the Soviet contribution below 7.5 per cent. Chernyshev87 (U.S.S.R.), at the same discussion, said [Page 474] he personally did not agree that the U. S. scale should be below forty-five per cent, citing the U. S. standard of living as compared to that of other countries.

[Here follows summary of other developments of interest to the Delegation that occurred on November 8.]

Austin
  1. Trygve Lie, Secretary-General of the United Nations.
  2. See telegram 782, November 8, supra.
  3. D. Pitblado, Adviser to the United Kingdom Member on the Fifth Committee (Younger).
  4. Vladimir S. Geraschenko, Alternate Member for the Soviet Union on the Fifth Committee.
  5. P.M. Chernyshov, Alternate Member for the Soviet Union on the Fifth Committee.