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  4. Document 406

501.BB/1–1246: Telegram

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

secret
Washington , January 19, 1946—8 p.m.

631. Delun 49, paragraph 7.44 Undel 92. We suggest decision not to propose specific date for convening of representatives of members of MSC be reconsidered. With UK having failed in efforts for discussions pre-MSC meeting; with Soviet linking the despatch of their representatives to adoption of a decision re MSC by SC (Moscow’s 31, January 18);45 with France and China unlikely to take initiative, there remains only US to make a proposal. Would it be unrealistic to propose sometime within next 10 days, say, January 25 or 28? Unless we are willing to propose a specific date we lose the value thereof in spurring action on other matters as well as render open to doubt our earlier assertions of desire to see MSC meet and organize without delay.46

Acheson
  1. Not printed.↩
  2. See footnote 30, p. 730.↩

  3. At its 2nd Meeting in London, January 25, the Security Council adopted without objection the draft directive which the Preparatory Commission had recommended that the Council issue to the Military Staff Committee; for text, see United Nations, Official Records of the Security Council, First Year, First Series, Supplement No. 1, Annex 1, Section 3, p. 2. The date for the convening of the MSC was not specified in the directive. At the suggestion of the United States, the date was set at February 1. The MSC actually first met on February 4 at which time the United States representatives presented a proposal “Views on the Functions and Organization of the Military Staff Committee of the United Nations.” That document had been approved by the State-War-Navy Coordinating Committee as Appendix A of document SWNCC 219/3 on December 12, 1945. The United States draft served as the basis for discussion in the drafting of MSC rules of procedure; the rules adopted by the MSC on February 14 and under which the MSC was directed to operate provisionally by the Security Council on February 16 drew heavily upon the United States proposal.

    The files of the Bureau of International Organization Affairs, Department of State, contain a set of the records of the Military Staff Committee which include records of the proceedings of the Committee and its subcommittees and the documentation produced thereby.

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