501.BB Summaries/12–946: Telegram
Senator Austin to the Secretary of State
us urgent
[via Courier]
948. GA Secret Summary.
Committee V, Subcommittee on Contributions (4th Meeting).
Senator Vandenberg on December 9 stated the “final” U.S. position on scales of contribution pointing out that an amount not exceeding 38.89 [39.89?] per cent of the UN budget and Working Capital Fund was the limit that could be recommended for Congressional approval.
There were two reservations which he wished to make clear, Vandenberg said, (1) under no circumstances could the U.S. consent to any one nation paying more than a maximum of 33⅓ per cent under normal conditions, and (2) the U.S. was voluntarily assuming the larger percentage for the 1947 budget and Working Capital Fund as a temporary assessment to assist the UN in an emergency post-war period of economic allocations.
The U.S. was unwilling, he added, to have any scale of contributions established for 1948 or thereafter because any scale should reflect economic changes which occur from year to year and should annually be reviewed. Vandenberg asserted that the U.S. anticipated that factors other than “capacity to pay” would hereafter be given seriousconsideration as a matter of sound public policy in an international organization of “sovereign equals.”
Discussion closed without agreement being reached on the U.S. position or on a counter proposal that the U.S. assume 40.27 per cent [Page 499] for 1946 and 39 per cent for 1947. Further alternative proposals, it appeared were being worked out by the Chairman.27
[Here follows discussion of other items.]
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At the 5th meeting of the Sub-Committee on December 11 the Sub-Committee reached agreement on an unanimous basis on a scale of contributions for 1946 and 1947 in which the United States was alloted 39.89 percent for each year; this meeting is reported in a detailed secret summary sent to the Department in telegram 955, December 11, 11:15 p.m., from New York (501.BB Summaries/12–1146).
The Sub-Committee’s report (GA(I/2), Fifth Committee, pp. 318 ff.) was discussed in the Fifth Committee on December 12 (ibid., pp. 254 and 255), at which time Senator Vandenberg paid special tribute to Dr. Martinez-Cabanas for securing unanimous agreement in the Sub-Committee, and on December 13 (ibid., pp. 272 ff.), when the Committee adopted the Sub-Committee’s report by 33 votes, with no opposition, the remaining members abstaining.
For the Report of the Fifth Committee to the General Assembly concerning the scale of contributions of the United Nations budgets for 1946 and 1947 and the Working Capital Fund, see United Nations, Official Records of the General Assembly, First Session, Second Part, Supplement No. 4, pp. 58 and 59. For the resolution adopted by the General Assembly, December 14, embodying a scale of contributions for 1946 and 1947 which allocated to the United States a contribution of 39.89 per cent (Resolution 69 (I)), see ibid., p. 60. For an “Explanatory Note” regarding the resolutions adopted in connection with the 1946 and 1947 budgets, see ibid., p. 62.
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