IO Files: US/A/955
Memorandum by Mr. Charles P. Noyes of the United States Delegation Staff of Advisers
Various Conversations on the Veto During Committee 1 Meetings on November 18 and 19, 1947
united kingdom
Sir Hartley Shawcross advised us before the meeting on November 19 that they had just received a telegram from Bevin in which Bevin’s reaction to the American resolution was very negative. The particular point which Bevin disliked was the reference of this matter to the Interim Committee. He appeared to think that this was an unnecessary and unwise provocation of the Russians in view of the fact that they had already announced their boycott of the Interim Committee. Sir Hartley was obviously embarrassed by the speech he made the previous day. He intimated he would probably be forced to vote No or at least abstain on the first paragraph of the United States resolution. He indicated he would probably vote for the last paragraph. He gave us no indication as to what he would do on the resolution as a whole. He inquired whether it would be possible to secure unanimous agreement on a resolution consisting of the preamble and the last paragraph. We told him we could not possibly agree to that at this late stage in the discussion, particularly when we knew there were a lot of other delegations who wanted to go a great deal further than the first paragraph of our resolution went, and were withholding their proposals because of the existence of ours.
The question came up during this discussion whether or not the Russians would be willing to conduct Five-Power negotiations in accordance with our last paragraph on the question of the veto. We intimated to Sir Hartley that before he took any decision as to how to vote, it might be well to find this out. Sir Hartley considered for a while whether to have a private conversation with Gromyko on this point, or whether to ask him openly in the Committee. During the discussion with Mr. Dulles, he talked with Gromyko and asked him this question point-blank. Gromyko’s answer was a flat No, and that [Page 231] he would object strenuously to all parts of the American resolution. (Yugoslavia abstained on the final paragraph of the United States resolution.) After that conversation, Sir Hartley apparently made up his mind not to raise any questions and to disregard Bevin’s telegram, because he said nothing and supported the United States resolution as a whole.
[Here follows further discussion of the subject.]