501.BB/12–446
Senator Austin to the Secretary of State
[Received 1:11 a.m.]
913. Reference my telegram 877, November 29 and phone conversations today with Dreier concerning Department’s view that 1st paragraph of tentative Egyptian resolution on troops in foreign territories should if submitted be revised to read as follows:
“The General Assembly considers that, according to the letter and spirit of the Charter of the United Nations and to the principle of sovereign equality, no state member can station its armed forces on the territory of another member, except under the terms of a treaty or other agreement freely negotiated with the latter member, or with that member’s free consent given in some other form in accordance with the principles of the Charter”.
Sanhoury51 informed Villard52 today that instead of submitting resolution Egyptians will in connection with consideration of troops [Page 1081] census question or disarmament in plenary session make statement along lines of above draft. However, reference to “terms of a treaty or other agreement” would be omitted.
Sanhoury asked if United States would make supporting statement but indicated he would rather have United States not speak than to make statement mentioning treaties or agreements as in text.
Since we understand Department attaches importance to reference to terms of treaty or agreement in this general context we informed Egyptians that we would prefer not to speak on subject, since our statement would need to include reference to treaties and agreements. For Department’s information additional consideration was that such statements if made might evoke series of supporting statements in plenary which Soviet group might exploit and use to push through resolution on subject.
Egyptians indicated that our silence would be satisfactory to them and that they will make unilateral statement.
United Kingdom delegation will, however, support Egyptian statement, making specific reference to treaty or agreement and are cabling London for clearance of text tonight.53
Both Sanhoury and Fauzi [Fawzi] expressed their regret that their original proposal had led to complications and made clear that their decision to abandon the resolution resulted largely from a desire to avoid possible difficulties for United States in accepting the text of their proposed resolution.
- Abdel Razak A. El-Sanhoury, Egyptian Representative to the General Assembly.↩
- Henry S. Villard, Adviser, United States Delegation to the General Assembly.↩
- The statements contemplated here were delivered by Egyptian and United Kingdom representatives at the 53rd Meeting of the General Assembly, December 10; for texts, see GA (I/2), Plenary, pp. 1077 and 1084.↩