501.BC/1–146
Memorandum by the United States Representative at the United Nations (Stettinius) to the Secretary of State
secret
USSC 46/6
USSC 46/6
[London,] January 22, 1946.
Subject: Proposed United States Position in the Security Council With Respect to the Iranian, Soviet and Ukrainian Requests.41
I propose that we adopt the following position with respect to all three of these requests:
- (1)
- That they should be treated identically.
- (2)
- That at the next meeting of the Security Council (which will probably be on Thursday42) I should either propose or support (depending on circumstances) the position that the Council should at that meeting decide to ask each of the three countries which have brought situations to the attention of the Security Council to appear at a stated date within the next week to present its case in elaboration of its letter to the President of the Security Council. An opportunity would of course be afforded the other states whose interests are directly affected to give their side of the cases. Separate days should be set for each of these hearings, perhaps successive days next week.
- (3)
- That at the next meeting of the Security Council I should propose or support an invitation to the Greek Government to be represented at the meeting when the Soviet case is presented; this would be done by a procedural vote in accordance with Article 31 of the Charter [Page 307] which provides: “Any Member of the United Nations which is not a member of the Security Council may participate, without vote, in the discussion of any question brought before the Security Council whenever the latter considers that the interests of that Member are specially affected.” Except for Iran and the Ukraine which would be invited under (2) above, Greece appears to be the only country whose interests are specially affected in any of the three situations which is not on the Security Council and to which an invitation should therefore be extended; the U.S.S.R., the U.K. and the Netherlands are members of the Council.
- (4)
- That the Council, after hearing the formal presentation of the case by each of the three appellants and any remarks that other states, including those whose interests are specially affected, may wish to make, should study the briefs and documents submitted. Any decisions of the Council with respect to investigation or other proposals for dealing with the issues will be made after the Security Council has made its study of the documents and their presentation.
This recommendation is concurred in by Mr. Dunn, Mr. Pasvolsky, Mr. Wadsworth, Mr. Hare and Mr. Bohlen.43
- The Soviet complaint alleged that the continued presence of British troops in Greece was fraught with grave consequences for the maintenance of peace and security; the Ukrainian complaint dealt with the situation in Indonesia. For documentation on the two complaints, see ante pp. 104 ff., and volume viii , respectively.↩
- Actually, the Second Meeting of the Security Council took place on Friday, January 25.↩
- James Clement Dunn and Leo Pasvolsky were Senior Advisers to the United States delegation at the United Nations; George Wadsworth, Raymond A. Hare, and Charles E. Bohlen were Political Advisers to the delegation.↩