IO Files: US/A/C.4/14
Memorandum of Conversation, Between Members of the United States and Soviet Delegations to the United Nations
| Participants: | Mr. Gromyko, Mr. Novikov, Mr. Stein, of the Soviet Delegation |
| Mr. Bloom, Mr. Dulles, Mr. Yost, Mr. Gerig |
At our invitation, the Soviet Delegates took lunch with us today at the University Club to consider various questions which we thought might arise in the trusteeship discussions at the Assembly. As we had not had any reply from Mr. Gromyko to the memorandum which was handed to him by Mr. Johnson and Mr. Gerig on October 15,47 we thought it advisable to follow up on this matter and to discuss any other matters which might be of interest to the two Delegations.
Mr. Bloom asked Mr. Dulles to state some of the questions which particularly interested us. Mr. Dulles said that we might start by considering the views which we respectively held on the best way to consider the draft trusteeship agreements in the Fourth Committee. He thought it would be necessary, in any case, to have a Subcommittee and the question arose as to the size and composition of this Subcommittee.
Mr. Gromyko said that it would be desirable to have a rather small Subcommittee and Mr. Novikov added that it would be good to have a few days of general discussion by the whole Committee based on the Secretary-General’s report as to these trusteeship agreements.
Mr. Dulles then suggested that the Subcommittee might well be composed of about ten states, somewhat on the pattern of the projected Trusteeship Council. Mr. Gerig suggested that perhaps the Rapporteur of the Committee might be added and that the question might also arise as to whether the Subcommittee should be composed exactly as the Trusteeship Council, since that might prejudice the election of two or three of the states that might later be considered for election to the Trusteeship Council. It was generally agreed that such a Subcommittee composed generally along these lines would be desirable.
Mr. Dulles then suggested that the Committee might be composed [Page 666] of the five permanent members of the Trusteeship Council, the other states submitting trust agreements if they are not among the five, and that would leave two or so to be added.
Mr. Gromyko thought that if the Rapporteur was Czechoslovakia, that would account for one, and that one of the Arab states might be another. Mr. Novikov suggested India, but Mr. Gromyko did not feel that that would necessarily be a wise selection.
Mr. Gromyko then raised the question of what our view was concerning “states directly concerned”.
Mr. Dulles said that they were familiar with our view, as stated in the memorandum, namely, that we hope it will be possible for all to agree on a simple procedure by which a formally signed agreement by certain states will not be necessary. He thought this was entirely feasible if we could get a Subcommittee composed as suggested before since this would give each of the five powers ample opportunity to make further suggestions or amendments. He added that the United States, as they well knew, had already made a number of suggestions to the mandatory powers and that some of these suggestions were included in the revised drafts.
Mr. Gromyko said that it was difficult to see how Article 79 could be interpreted as not requiring a formal agreement by certain states directly concerned. Then after the formal agreement was concluded, it would be necessary under Article 81 for the Assembly to approve such an agreement.
Mr. Dulles said that that was undoubtedly one possible procedure and that we had, ourselves, at one time felt along the same line. More recently, however, we felt that another procedure would be equally valid and we felt strongly that it would be necessary to adopt a simpler procedure if we were to get a Trusteeship Council at all this year. We certainly did not wish to do anything which was contrary to the Charter, but felt our proposal was entirely consistent with the Charter.
Mr. Bloom said that if we have a formally signed agreement, the question might arise as to completing such a formal agreement by some form of ratification and that this would certainly take some time. When Mr. Novikov said that an executive agreement might be sufficient, Mr. Bloom said that even an executive agreement in our system requires a joint resolution of Congress, that Congress is not now in session, and that such a procedure would certainly delay the establishment of the Trusteeship Council. Mr. Bloom added that a Subcommittee composed as previously suggested would, in Parliamentary practice, be entirely feasible since all the members could indicate their [Page 667] position in the Subcommittee and the report could be made on behalf of all of them.
Mr. Gromyko then asked Mr. Dulles to reply to a specific question, namely, whether the United States would consider that the Five Powers were “states directly concerned” in all mandated territories.
Mr. Dulles asked Mr. Gerig if we have a position on this general question as to who might be regarded as “states directly concerned” in case it came to a vote.
Mr. Gerig said that he thought our position was that if it became necessary to specify “states directly concerned” it would have to be done by a vote of the General Assembly, probably by a two-thirds vote. He said he did not know if we had a definite position because we had hoped the question would not arise. But he thought that we felt that the Five Powers, because of their special position on the Trusteeship Council as well as the Security Council might be in a position to put forward special claims to be states concerned in the draft trusteeship agreements which would be brought before this session of the Assembly. Mr. Yost said that that was also his impression.
Mr. Dulles said that that was also his impression and that we would try to give them a more definite reply if they desired it, which they did.
Mr. Dulles said that they knew, of course, that the United States has a special treaty position which was different from that of the Soviet Union and China, namely, that the United States was one of the Principal Allied and Associated Powers in whose favor the mandated territories had been renounced by Germany at the end of the First World War. He said that this was not necessarily a special position that we would emphasize, but he thought it should be mentioned.
Mr. Stein said he thought the Treaty of Versailles mentioned “Allied and Associated Powers” and not “Principal Allied and Associated Powers”. Mr. Gerig said that he was quite certain that the word “Principal” stood in the text and Mr. Stein acknowledged that Mr. Gerig was probably right.
Mr. Stein then said that, in their view, the terms proposed by the mandatory powers were very inadequate and unsatisfactory. Mr. Dulles said that we also regarded them in their original form as quite inadequate but that he thought the revised drafts which were not yet in circulation would be found to be much better. As he had said before, the United States had made a number of suggestions, many of which were accepted, and it was on that account that we felt they were substantially pretty good, although they were capable of some improvement.
The discussion was friendly and cordial throughout. The Soviet Delegation did not, however, give a clear indication that they were [Page 668] yet ready to accept the simplified procedure which we suggested. It did, however, appear that their first objective was to be classified in relation to all trust territories as a “state directly concerned” and that to get this they might make some concessions.48