501.BC/9–1846
Memorandum of Telephone Conversations, by the Director of the Office of Special Political Affairs (Hiss)
In telephone calls from Mr. Johnson, and Mr. Noyes, late yesterday afternoon, last night, and this morning the following was developed:
Cadogan and Van Kleffens continue to be opposed to a subcommittee of the Council meeting in New York to consider the facts relating to the border incidents. They have indicated to Mr. Johnson that they would prefer an investigating commission of experts being sent out to investigate these border incidents. However, Mr. Johnson believes that their first preference continues to be for a mere dropping of the case. It was agreed that Mr. Johnson, on the basis of his estimate of general support for a commission, would decide whether to amend his proposed remarks to include willingness to support a commission as well as a subcommittee.
Mr. Johnson told me in confidence and asked that the Department take pains to treat the matter as strictly confidential that Mr. Lie, after yesterday’s session of the Council, had expressed his fear that Gromyko would attempt to veto a proposal for a subcommittee. As Gromyko himself will be in the chair and as the prior ruling in the Spanish case is available for him as a precedent, Gromyko could rule that the motion had been vetoed which would leave the motion in the same state of impasse as occurred in the Spanish case. Mr. Lie said that if this occurred he would be prepared on his own initiative and under his own authority as Secretary General to send out a group of three of his own Secretariat officials to investigate the facts of the border incidents, provided he was assured that this would have the support of the United States. Mr. Lie said that he would plan to send an American, a Chinese (Mr. Kuo) and his Norwegian Military Adviser.
After discussing this matter with Mr. Hickerson I called Mr. Johnson this morning and said that I had not yet had an opportunity to present the question to Mr. Clayton but that the present thinking of EUR and SPA is that Mr. Lie should be told that of course he must make his own decision as to whether he is authorized and whether he should act in the manner he is suggesting, and that in our opinion he would be authorized to take such action and the action would be desirable. Moreover, if any question is raised about his action we would support it. However, in view of the fact that a commission may be proposed and vetoed, Mr. Johnson should emphasize the distinction between a commission and a committee, pointing out that [Page 220] under the present development of the Council’s procedure there is legal authority to veto a proposed commission. We would not think it appropriate for the Secretary General on his own initiative to send a group of members of his own staff to investigate a subject which the Council had considered and rejected because of the lawful use of the veto.
Mr. Johnson expressed himself as fully in agreement with these views and said that he would tell Mr. Lie the exact present status including the fact that no top ruling has been made on the Department’s position but that the foregoing represents the present trend of thinking within the Department.73
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In a memorandum of conversation, September 20, Mr. Hiss reported “I called Mr. Johnson this morning on this subject and pointed out that now that he has definitely decided to propose only the establishment of a commission (as opposed to a subcommittee which would sit only in New York) Mr. Lie’s proposal becomes academic, in view of the fact that no one in the Department has thought it would be appropriate to take such action in the event of a veto of a commission (this being recognized as a substantive issue in which the use of the veto would not be improper). I said that in view of the fact that the question proposed by Mr. Lie’s inquiry will not arise I did not wish to present the matter to Mr. Clayton at all since I did not think he should be asked to rule on a purely hypothetical matter when the issues involved were so important. I said that I also wanted Mr. Johnson to understand that doubts had been expressed by officers of EE, SE and NEA. They feel that no useful purpose is likely to be served by such action since the members of the Secretariat would probably not be permitted to enter Albania, Yugoslavia or Bulgaria and the Secretariat group could, therefore, not conduct a real inquiry. This prospect of the inability of the Secretariat group to accomplish anything makes it, in the opinion of the officers mentioned, unwise to run the serious risks of impairing Lie’s effectiveness in his relations with the Russians and of perhaps adversely affecting the Russian relationship to the United Nations as a whole.
↩“It was agreed that Mr. Johnson would tell Mr. Lie that in as much as the situation in the Council envisaged by Lie would not now arise we had not felt warranted in asking Mr. Clayton to pass on the question. Mr. Johnson said he would also indicate to Mr. Lie that some of the officers of the Department had doubts about the merits of the proposal in any event. Mr. Johnson thought this would satisfactorily dispose of the issue.” (501.BC/9–2046.)