Office of the Historian

IO Files: US/A/885

Memorandum of Conversation, by Mr. Ray L. Thurston of the United States Delegation Staff of Advisers

confidential
[New York,] November 12, 1947.

I asked Mr. Vellodi1 what had prompted the Indian withdrawal. He said that, frankly, India’s only chance of election had been the possible switch of some of the Latin American votes. After Mrs. Pandit’s criticism of Argentina in connection with the question of Spain, it seemed to the Indians that additional support from the Latin American group would not be forthcoming. He added that Mrs. Pandit also felt that the deadlock between India and the Ukraine was blocking the work of the Assembly.

Asked how the newspapers got a premature story on the Indian withdrawal, Mr. Vellodi rather bitterly said that Aranha had “spilled the beans” to the press without authorization. He said that the Indian Delegation had planned to announce the withdrawal in tomorrow’s plenary session, and that they would have told the United States and United Kingdom Delegations today of their decision.2

  1. M. K. Vellodi of the Indian Delegation.↩

  2. For the proceedings of the General Assembly in regard to the election of the Security Council non-permanent member on November 13, see GA(II), Plenary, vol. i, pp. 749–751. The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic was elected.

    On the same date the Philippines and Costa Rica were elected to the Trusteeship Council, the latter after the withdrawal of Norway (GA (II), Plenary, vol. i, pp. 751–753).

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