Foreign Relations of the United States, 1946, General; the United Nations, Volume I

IO Files

Minutes of the Twenty-ninth Meeting of the United States Delegation, New York, Hotel Pennsylvania, November 26, 1946, 9 a.m.

New York, November 26, 1946, 9 a.m.

secret

[Here follows a list of persons (28) present.]

Resolution on Armed Forces

Mr. Sanders, at the request of Senator Connally, introduced the subject of the Resolution on Armed Forces. He reported that the United Kingdom on November 25 had submitted its resolution on the subject (US/A/C.1/72 (Rev. a)).²⁶ The question now before the Delegation he said was whether the United States should go along with the verification provision, which was set forth in the British resolution as follows:

“This information which should be furnished not later than January 1, 1947, should relate to the situation on that date, and should be immediately subjected to an effective United Nations system of verification on the spot by a Committee to be established by the Security Council before that date.”

Mr. Sanders continued that other than this paragraph the British resolution was acceptable to the United States.

Senator Connally pointed out the principle [principal] difference was that the United Kingdom provided for inspection in its resolution. He reported that on the previous day in Committee 1 he did not make a stand on the question, for the Secretary had said that he did not want to support the verification procedure. At the same time, Senator Connally said that he was hesitant, following the speech of Noel-Baker,²⁷ to come out strongly against the British. He said he did not want to throw a wet blanket at that point. Therefore, the Delegation was now still in a position to talk about the verification procedure from either point of view.²⁸

Upon being asked by Senator Connally, Mr. Cohen replied that he had not had an opportunity to discuss the question with the Secretary since the previous day.

Mr. Sanders said that it might be possible to have both the Russian and United Kingdom proposals referred to a subcommittee. Senator Connally said he was not sure that such a move would be successful. Mr. Sanders pointed out that the essential question was what the Delegation wished to do on the inspection provisions.

Senator Connally recalled that at its previous meeting the Delegation²⁹ had taken a position against the inspection provision because of the Secretary’s views. Senator Connally said that he was going to oppose the verification proposal although his own feeling was that the verification was necessary in the long run at least. He recalled that it had been asked in the proposals on atomic energy. However, he realized the difficulties in establishing a verification procedure on short notice.

Mrs. Roosevelt³⁰ said that if the inspection were established by the Atomic Energy Commission then a similar or the same procedure could be used for inspecting for all kinds of armaments. However, she thought that the last sentence of the British proposal was very difficult when it said that the information should be verified on the spot by a Committee established by the Security Council. She said that she thought the proposal would have some sense if it were to say that when a system of inspection was established for general disarmament then there should be verification of the reports.

Mr. McClintock^30a reported that Cadogan had told him on a previous day that the United Kingdom was willing to publish where their troops were located first and then have a check made later. He added that this was told him in a private conversation. Senator Connally observed that of course the information could not be verified until it was published. He said that he agreed with Mrs. Roosevelt that any comprehensive arms plan must have an inspection system. Mrs. Roosevelt added that she thought it would be top-heavy if there were separate inspection systems for each type of armaments.

Mr. Sandifer reported that following the meeting of November 25, Mr. Ross had called the Department. It was Mr. Acheson’s view that it was politically impractical, and would be considered as a delaying move, to support the verification procedure. Mr. Acheson was most anxious that the reporting provisions should be put through soon.

Mr. Dulles said that he did not see why we should vote against the verification procedure. It was a fundamental principle that the United States has voted for previously. He did not want to delay the reporting but asked why we should not request the various nations whether they would be willing to permit verification on the basis of reciprocity. If they were willing to do so, then the Security Council should be asked to set up machinery.

Mr. Cohen said that he agreed that we should not oppose verification as a principle, but he thought we should be slow to allow verification to be brought into this resolution in the vague and all inclusive way in which it was proposed. He thought it was likely to endanger the effective safeguards which might be established later. If it were proposed that outside inspectors would be able to pry everywhere before there was an effective system of disarmament established, the effect would be to discredit all verification procedures. He thought it would be impossible in advance to define an effective verification method. He believed it was right to make clear that effective safeguards were the essence of disarmament. It should be pointed out that the United States did not think that the form of verification proposed for this purpose had been sufficiently worked out to warrant United States support for it.

[Here follows additional discussion of the troops question and of other subjects.]

Mr. Dawson observed that he would not like to have to go to the Latin American states and tell them that the United States was going to vote against inspection. He said he had the distinct impression, that the speech of Noel-Baker had greatly impressed the Latin American delegates on the previous day. He thought that if the matter came to a vote and the United States had to inform the Latin American states that we were going to vote against the verification procedure, we would be in a most difficult position.

Mr. Sandifer reported that he understood that Mr. Acheson was also concerned lest hasty action of this kind might work to the detriment of the atomic energy inspection proposals.

Mr. Stevenson said that he wanted to concur in the opinion which Mr. Sandifer had just reported. He said it seemed to him that it was quite possible that the inspection proposal would be interpreted as a disingenuous manner of sabotaging the entire reporting procedure. Mrs. Douglas said that she agreed strongly. She believed that one of the reasons that the United Kingdom made the proposal was to delay and she thought that if we went along with this we would be falling into the trap.

Mr. Dawson explained that he did not mean that the British verification scheme should be supported, but he thought it would be embarrassing if it were necessary to oppose it flatly.

Mr. Dulles said that he had not heard anyone present advocate supporting the British proposal for verification, there being general agreement that it was playing right into the Russian hands. He said that the only question he was going to raise was whether we were going to reject the principle of verification, even admitting that it could not be put into effect now. He maintained that the Soviet proposal had been intended to show a militaristic picture of the world. He pointed out that under this each country could draw its own military picture and there was no way of checking the reality. This followed the general Soviet propaganda line which painted the picture of the Soviet Union which it desired and which it was not possible to check. Pictures of other military establishments might also not always be accurate. It was his opinion that verification as proposed under the U.K. statement should not be approved but he thought it was entirely different to vote against the principle.

Mrs. Roosevelt inquired whether it could be argued that the principle of verification must apply to the whole disarmament question. Perhaps some temporary method of verification could be applied to this situation that would not be as satisfactory as might be devised when the whole picture developed. She thought that it might be pointed out by Senator Connally that the United States was not going to vote for this specific proposal but wanted it clearly understood that it agreed that eventually there must be verification procedures and methods set up to enable us to see the whole picture of disarmament. At present, we did not want to delay the information which should be given. Future arrangements for verification will change with altered circumstances.

Senator Vandenberg said that the last paragraph was out of harmony with the rest of the British proposal. The first paragraphs of the British proposal were a set of preliminary premises on which to base later study. To move from the general statement to the very specific one in the last paragraph, which in itself was not remotely adequate to defend the principle of inspection, would result in defeating that principle by its very inadequacy. He felt there should be a change in approach to indicate that this preliminary information was a specific instance and to establish any system for immediate verification was incompatible with what had been set forth in the preceding paragraphs.

Senator Connally said that on the previous day in Committee I the delegation had not been committed as to how we would vote. He reported that he had gone on to say that any disarmament proposal must have a verification procedure as an essential. He had recalled that that had been insisted on in the Atomic Energy Commission proposals. He noted that the British were greatly irritated at the Russians over this question, Mr. Molotov had as well as said that the purpose of the Russian resolution was to get foreign armies out of the overseas territories where they were stationed. Since the British felt that this was essentially a political question, it was no doubt part of their motive to introduce a paragraph which the Russians did not want.

Senator Connally continued that he was not anxious to leave the British open to the assaults of their enemies by announcing right after Noel-Baker’s statement that the United States would vote against the United Kingdom proposal. He pointed out that it would be possible to vote on the resolution piece-meal and to avoid voting on the last paragraph or try to substitute a paragraph for it.

Senator Vandenberg pointed out that the United Kingdom paper described the information procedure “as a first step in the study of this question”. He thought that was the point of view which should be maintained. It should not be attempted to make of this motion more than an exchange of information. To go further would need many other provisions which were not included in the United Kingdom resolution.

Senator Connally pointed out that part of the point of the United Kingdom proposal would be met if there were included in the resolution a report on the number of troops at home.

Mr. Dulles pointed out that the original Russian resolution did not make a connection with disarmament, it did not speak of any first step towards disarmament, it merely asked for the disclosure of information on the location of troops abroad. The connection would be established only if the United Kingdom resolution were passed.

Mr. Sandifer said that he thought that Senator Vandenberg had put his finger on the heart of the question. He inquired whether it was realistic to expect acceptance of an indefinite, ill-defined system. He was sure that other nations would not accept such a proposal.

Mr. Dulles pointed out that the delegation was unanimous in opposing the last paragraph of the British resolution. What he wanted to know was what was going to be said regarding the principle of verification.

Senator Connally left the meeting at this point to talk with the Secretary. Senator Vandenberg took the chair.

Senator Vandenberg remarked that he thought that this question should be referred to the Secretary who had the power to act on this matter.

Mr. Wadsworth reported that the British Political Officer for the Near East had on the previous day given him to understand that the British were bringing pressure to bear on the Arabs to vote for the resolution as it stood. With respect to the last paragraph of the British resolution, the British official had said that they wanted to go along with the United States realizing the difficulty the U.S. faced. He suggested that a great deal could be accomplished if only the United States would make some suggestion regarding the common ground. Mr. Wadsworth continued that he thought Mr. Dulles and Mrs. Roosevelt had found that common ground, that was to make the resolution more general to approve the principle of verification and to assign the means and time for making such verification to the Security Council.

Mr. Fahy suggested that the difficulty might be resolved by the adoption of an amendment along the following lines “the information with respect to the numbers and location of armed forces shall be subject to such method of verification or inspection as may be adopted in connection with reduction of armaments or otherwise.”

Mr. Stevenson observed that he thought that linking the question in this way was going to get us into a long discussion. He said it seemed to him that Senator Connally should say repeatedly that the United States insists on the principle of verification. However, this was a one-shot job to get the figures on the location of troops and close the matter there. He was sure that if verification were insisted upon there would be no action taken. He pointed out that this was not a continuing matter of verification or reporting on a month-to-month basis. Such reports would be provided under general disarmament machinery.

Senator Vandenberg observed this was essentially a questionnaire. He continued that it was fantastic to think that the verification could be handled by the procedure set up under the last paragraph of the British draft. However, he thought that the discussion could be most profitably resumed on the following day.³¹

26. Ante, p. 1050.
27. Philip Noel-Baker, British Representative at the General Assembly.
28. Regarding Senator Connally’s remarks at the 27th Meeting of the First Committee, November 25, see footnote 17, p. 1050.
29. The reference is to the 28th Meeting of the Delegation, November 25; in regard to the decisions taken at that meeting, see telegram 851, November 25, from New York, p. 1050.
30. Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt, widow of the late President Roosevelt; United States Representative at the General Assembly.
31. Robert M. McClintock, Adviser, United States Delegation to the General Assembly.

31. The record of decisions of this meeting indicates that the following decisions were taken:

    “1. Resolution on Armed Forces

    The decision of the Secretary of State was reported that the United States should not agree to the British proposal for verification in connection with the furnishing of information on armed forces. The Delegation decision of the previous day, November 25, on this question was then reaffirmed.

    It was agreed that the Delegation should move at the appropriate time for the substitution of paragraph B of the draft US resolution (US/A/C.1/69 Rev. a) for the final paragraph of the British resolution, with a change of the date November 1 to December 15.”

    For text of US/A/C.1/72 (Rev. a), see p. 1050.