Foreign Relations of the United States, 1946, The British Commonwealth, Western and Central Europe, Volume V

501.BB/12–1046

Memorandum of Telephone Conversations, by the Director of the Office of Special Political Affairs (Hiss)

[Washington,] December 10, 1946.

Participants:	John C. Ross—U.S. Delegation to the General Assembly
	Durward V. Sandifer—U.S. Delegation to the General Assembly
	Alger Hiss—SPA

Mr. Ross called me this morning and said that he wished to talk about the proposed resolution on Spain.⁸¹ He mentioned that Mrs. Douglas^81a was particularly anxious that our Delegation not oppose the proposed resolution.

We were in agreement that the sole issue revolves about the provision that “if within a reasonable time” a new government has not been established in Spain the Security Council should then “consider the adequate measures to be taken in order to remedy the situation”. This provision was proposed by Belgium and was adopted against our opposition (see memorandum of conversation of December 3⁸² setting forth the Department’s position with respect to this provision in the form in which the Belgian Delegation had introduced it⁸³): Mr. Ross said that in addition to those of our Delegation who favored simply supporting the resolution there were those who wanted to propose an amendment to the foregoing provision. Such an amendment would be designed to remove any implication that the Assembly considered the Spanish question warranted the attention of the Security Council and hence involved a threat to the peace. Mr. Ross thought that the British would go along with the resolution as it stands at present. He thought they had decided it was unwise to take any other action under the circumstances. He also thought the general sentiment of other delegations was along the same lines. He said that he would attempt to get further information about the attitude of the British and other delegations.

After talking to Mr. Hickerson⁸⁴ and Mr. Dunham,⁸⁵ I cleared with Mr. Acheson the following as the Department’s views:

1. It would be unwise for the Delegation to propose an amendment to the resolution. The whole subject has become confused and unrealistic. For us to propose an amendment would merely attract additional unwarranted importance to the resolution and would be likely further to confuse the situation. In addition, an amendment would probably be regarded as being motivated by pro-Franco intentions.

2. With the foregoing considerations in mind our Delegation should simply vote for the resolution as a whole if it were presented to the Assembly in that form. We felt that our opposition to the Belgian amendment had already been made clear in committee and we also felt that it clearly would not prevent the Security Council from considering on its own the question of whether the Spanish situation represents a threat to the peace. We did not feel that any statements explaining our vote would be necessary although informal explanations to other delegations or to the press would be along the foregoing lines.

3. We should use our best efforts to have the resolution come before the Assembly for consideration in its entirety rather than paragraph by paragraph. If, however, the resolution is considered paragraph by paragraph, a procedure which is authorized by the rules, we should oppose the paragraph containing the Belgian amendment. Any statement we might make should briefly summarize the position we have taken in committee and should not be made a matter of importance.

As Mr. Ross was not available, I telephoned the foregoing information to Mr. Sandifer who said that he would relay it to Mr. Ross and to Mr. Raynor. He said he understood that Mr. Raynor felt it would be unwise for us to oppose the Belgian amendment even if the resolution were to be considered paragraph by paragraph. He pointed out that any single delegation might ask for paragraph by paragraph consideration so that such a procedure is quite a real possibility. I pointed out that Mr. Horsey had initially rather inclined to recommend that we support an amendment and that it seemed to me the Delegation was certainly not unanimous in favor of the view which Mr. Sandifer ascribed to Mr. Raynor. I said that if the Delegation felt that a re-statement of our position was undesirable in connection with our vote on the Belgian amendment I thought the Department would go along with our not attempting to explain our vote. I thought also the Department would be prepared, if the Delegation felt it desirable, to authorize abstention on the Belgian amendment rather than an actual negative vote. If the Delegation wished to recommend actual support of the paragraph, I said that I felt I would have to take the matter up further with Mr. Acheson. It was left that if Mr. Eaynor and Mr. Ross wished to talk further to me about this matter they would call me; otherwise it would be understood that the Delegation did not wish to raise any questions with respect to the Department’s views as stated above.

81. Resolution adopted by Committee I on December 9, quoted in telegram 953, supra.
82. Representative Helen Gahagan Douglas, of California, an alternate member of the United States Delegation.
82. Not printed.
83. The Department’s position was that to submit the proposal as outlined by the Belgian delegation to the Council would imply that there was some threat to peace in the Spanish situation, an implication which the Department had consistently denied (501.BC Spain/12–346).
84. John D. Hickerson, Deputy Director, Office of European Affairs.
85. William Barrett Dunham of the Division of Western European Affairs.