501.BC/9–1346
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Director of the Office of Special Political Affairs (Hiss)
Subject: Ukrainian Complaint Against Greece
| Participants: | Mr. Herschel Johnson (New York) |
| Mr. Charles Noyes69 (New York) | |
| Mr. Alger Hiss |
During the course of several conversations on this subject yesterday Mr. Johnson informed me that Parodi70 (France) is planning to propose a small committee of the Security Council to study in New York information relating to the Albanian-Greek frontier and to suggest possible action to the Council. Parodi’s idea is that this committee would require only a few days for its sessions.
After discussing this matter with Mr. Loy Henderson and with representatives of EUR I said that it was the general feeling in the Department that if such a motion is made we should attempt to have the subcommittee’s jurisdiction extended to include incidents occurring on the Greek-Yugoslav and the Greek-Bulgarian frontiers. However, we recognized that Mr. Johnson would probably not have very much specific evidence which he could offer in support of his suggestion and that in any event his proposal might not be accepted. In that event we feel that it would largely depend upon the circumstances in the Council at the moment and the attitude of the other representatives as to whether we should oppose or go along with the Parodi proposal. I said that the desk officers most directly concerned feel that it is to our interests to prevent the case being dropped from the agenda and that I thought this should be taken into account but that the discretion as to whether to vote for or against the Parodi proposal would have to be left to Mr. Johnson. There was complete agreement that in any event the issue would be a procedural one and not subject to veto and that we should make our position on this point plain.
Mr. Johnson told me that Van Kleffens (Netherlands), who was scheduled to be the first speaker this afternoon, had told him that he would suggest that the Secretary General be directed to write to the “parties concerned” asking them to refrain from all border incidents and also to the “great powers” asking them to exercise their influence to bring about moderation of the “parties concerned”. Mr. Johnson said that he felt confident that Mr. Lie would have to interpret the phrase “parties concerned” as limited to Greece and Albania and that [Page 217] Van Kleffens had that interpretation in mind. After discussing the matter with others in the Department, including Mr. Loy Henderson, I said that we felt that Dr. Van Kleffens should be persuaded to drop any reference to the “great powers” and to substitute for that phrase “permanent members of the Security Council”, otherwise it might appear as though the Council regarded the smaller states as puppets of particular great powers. The general feeling in the Department was that Dr. Van Kleffens’ proposal had a good deal to commend it and that we should not oppose it.
I sent word to New York this morning that if the question of choosing between the Parodi and the Van Kleffens’ proposal came up I did not think the Department had any particular choice and that I thought Mr. Johnson should be guided by the general sentiment in the Council. I suggested, however, that it might be feasible for the Council to do both things and pointed out that establishment of the committee would continue to keep the matter on the agenda.
In the course of conversations yesterday we were in agreement that if neither the Parodi nor the Van Kleffens’ proposals are adopted by the Council nothing remains but for us to support a move to drop the case from the agenda and to insist that such motion is procedural and not subject to veto.