IO Files
Minutes of the Twenty-fifth Meeting of the United States Delegation, New York, Hotel Pennsylvania, November 22, 1946, 9 a.m.
[Here follow a list of persons (29) present, consideration of another subject, and discussion of the Soviet resolution on reporting by United Nations members of their troops on non-enemy territory.]
Mr. Cohen said that the Secretary’s view was that it was advisable to support a merger of the two questions, making it clear that we did not want to delay disclosures of the number of our troops.96 That is, the United States should support consideration of the two items together but it should also vote for fairly prompt disclosure of the information requested in a matter of thirty or sixty days or some such time.
Mr. Dulles inquired whether when the Delegation voted on the Bevin resolution, that meant that we would disclose or would not disclose the number of our troops abroad. Senator Connally said that it was simply a question of discussing disarmament in the course of the debate and that some resolutions would certainly be brought in but that there were none before the Committee yet.
Mr. Dulles said that he thought it was all right to support the Bevin resolution if it was made clear that we will make the disclosures of the location of our troops whether the Bevin resolution passed or not. He said that the Soviets were of the opinion that our troops were scattered around the world engaged in some nefarious activities. [Page 1040] This was another kind of Soviet trap. The United Kingdom wanted to be evasive about giving this information. If we went along with them it would make us parties to the evasion. The alternative was to go along with the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics against the United Kingdom. If we went along with the Bevin resolution it should be made clear that we would none the less report on the presence of our troops abroad.
Mr. Cohen said that he thought that he had made it clear that the Secretary’s position was that we should support considering the two items simultaneously, that is, the resolution on reporting and the discussion of disarmament. It should be made clear that we did not want to delay the prompt disclosure of the troops abroad. Mr. Dulles observed that the reporting might be delayed unless the date for giving the information were set. Mr. Cohen pointed [out] that if the Bevin resolution were passed it amounted to considering the two agenda items, the report on the number of troops and disarmament, as one item. Mr. Fahy pointed out that the discussions might be held together but that the problems could be separated when it came to voting.
Mr. Yost97 observed that it was likely that Manuilsky,98 the Chairman, would push for a vote on the Soviet resolution and he thought it likely that there might be a wrangle over this question.
Mr. Sandifer said that he thought it was important that the point which Mr. Cohen had made should be perfectly clear; our support of the Bevin motion was with the understanding that it did not affect our position regarding the prompt disclosure of our troops abroad. Mr. Dulles agreed that this was a good idea.
Senator Austin said that he wished to poll the Delegation as where [as to whether?] it supported the Bevin resolution for merger of the two questions, at the same time serving notice we were ready to disclose troops in the home territory and everywhere else.
Senator Connally said the matter should not be made contingent, for that would give our hand away. Senator Austin said that he did not intend to make the matter contingent and he restated the Delegation position to be that this Delegation favored the merger of the resolution relating to information regarding troops and that relating to disarmament to be accompanied by a statement of our willingness to reveal the number of our troops abroad. This position was unanimously approved by the Delegation.
[Here follow additional discussion of the troops question and discussion of other subjects.]
- The merger under reference was proposed by British Foreign Secretary Bevin at the 25th Meeting of the First Committee on November 21; in regard to that meeting, see the memorandum of telephone conversation by Hiss, and footnote 89, p. 1031.↩
- Charles W. Yost, Adviser, United States Delegation to the General Assembly.↩
- Dmitri Z. Manuilsky, Minister for Foreign Affairs and Deputy Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars of the Ukraine; Chairman of the Ukrainian Delegation to the General Assembly.↩