501.BC Greece/11–2146
Memorandum by the Director of the Office of Special Political Affairs (Hiss) to the Under Secretary of State (Acheson)
Subject: Proposed Security Council Commission to Investigate Greek Border Clashes
In talking to Mr. Cohen47 on the above subject you may want to suggest to him that in the event Big Five commission along the lines we discussed at the meeting in your office this morning proves impossible, an alternative might be to have the Council charge the Secretary General with having members of his staff make such an investigation on behalf of the Council. You will recall that during the Ukrainian case against Greece Lie let it be known that he would be prepared on his own initiative under Article 99 to send such a group out to investigate the situation.48 Consequently the proposal would not be a novel one and presumably would be agreeable to Lie himself. Like the proposed Big Five commission it also avoids protracted delay in selection of personnel (if an independent expert commission of the kind we have considered heretofore were to be appointed) or the selection of countries to be represented (if a commission of government representatives made up of members in addition to or other than the Big Five were to be considered). There may also be some advantage to establishing the precedent of impartial Secretariat investigations which do not involve the likelihood of political controversies within the commission itself and likely conflicting statements for propaganda purposes being made by members of the commission. It would also avoid the Big Five domination aspect which the Secretary has in the past [Page 267] wanted to minimize. A commission selected by the Secretary General could include as advisers military officers now on the staffs of the respective representatives to the Military Staff Committee. This would give the Secretariat commission technical military competence.