501.BC/8–2746
Memorandum of Telephone Conversations, by the Director of the Office of Special Political Affairs (Hiss)
Subject: Attitude Toward the Ukrainian Complaint Against Greece
Mr. Johnson57 talked to me several times on the telephone on the above subject expressing considerable anxiety lest the Ukrainian complaint redound to the discredit of the Security Council. He said that he considered the complaint intellectually dishonest and frivolous. He hoped that we could oppose its being considered on those grounds. I pointed out that the position the Secretary had taken consistently had been that the Council was to be open to access by all states and that in our discussions heretofore in the Department about this matter we had simply assumed that the usual procedure would be followed of letting the Ukrainians supplement their complaint in an oral statement following which the Greek representative would be permitted to have his say. Mr. Johnson felt that this procedure would fail to avoid the dangers he foresaw. He said that he had some doubt as to whether the United States should take the lead in attacking the complaint and he thought it might be better tactics to have the Egyptian or perhaps the Brazilian take the lead. Although he had initially suggested that the Ukrainian’s present complaint should be dropped as frivolous with a ruling by the Council that it would not consider the matter further unless a written statement was submitted establishing a prima facie case for the file, in the course of our discussions Mr. Johnson took the position that perhaps the charge of frivolity should be made after the Ukrainians had been permitted to make an oral statement in support of their present written complaint.
I said that I thought this latter suggestion of Mr. Johnson merited careful consideration and that I was inclined to agree that many of the points made in the complaint presented no case for Council action. I said, however, that I thought the allegation of border incidents between Albania and Greece could not be dismissed as fabricated in view of the fact that the Greek memorandum58 against Albania’s application for membership had itself alleged a number of border incidents. Both Mr. Johnson and I recognized in this connection that it appeared strange for the Ukrainians to be pleading Albania’s case unless it could state reasons why Albania was itself not in a position to do so. [Page 196] This might offer a ground for the Council refusing to consider the Greek-Albanian border clashes at the present time.
Mr. Johnson urged me to see that this matter was considered carefully by the Department, saying that he thought the Ukrainian case would damage the Council’s prestige even more than the Spanish case had.
Mr. Johnson called me again on this subject to say that Dr. Van Kleffens59 also feels strongly about the dangers to the Council’s prestige inherent in the Ukrainian complaint and feels that the Council must protect itself from being made a forum for political propaganda. Dr. Van Kleffens said that he would oppose the complaint being placed on the agenda, pointing out that it took only five votes to block that action whereas it would require seven votes including all the permanent members to drop a case from the agenda once discussion had started. Dr. Van Kleffens had also said that he thought Mr. Johnson’s proposal would not meet the situation since it would be impossible to prevent lengthy acrimonious discussion in the Council about the merits of the case once the matter was permitted to appear on the agenda. I told Mr. Johnson that in view of the Department’s position that all states should have free access to the Council I did not see how we could support any attempt by Dr. Van Kleffens to prevent the matter going on the agenda. I pointed out that the Secretary, in the Iranian case, had stressed the fact that placing a matter on the agenda in no way represented any predetermination by the Council on the merits of the case and that the only way to determine whether a com plaint was frivolous was to permit its presentation, and I also pointed out that the Russians had themselves admitted in the Spanish case that only a procedural vote would be required to drop a matter from the agenda. Mr. Johnson said that he would talk further to Dr. Van Kleffens. I suggested that Dr. Van Kleffens might wish to express his doubts as to the propriety of the Council’s considering the case without actually formally opposing its appearing on the agenda.60
- Herschel Johnson, Acting United States Representative at the United Nations.↩
- No. 3807, July 25, not printed.↩
- Eelco Van Kleffens, Netherlands Representative at the United Nations.↩
- In telegram 523, August 28, 10:20 p.m., New York reported that at the morning session that day, the Netherlands spokesman, supported by Sir Alexander Cadogan, opposed inclusion of the Ukrainian complaint on the Security Council agenda until the complaint was better documented. Mr. Gromyko, the Soviet Representative at the United Nations, argued in favor of including the complaint on the agenda. It was decided to hold the question in abeyance. (501.BC/8–2846) For the official record of the proceedings of the Security Council on the morning of August 28, see SC, 1st yr., 2nd series, No. 4, pp. 33–39.↩