Foreign Relations of the United States, 1947, General; The United Nations, Volume I

501.AA/8–1647: Telegram

The Acting Secretary of State to the Mission at the United Nations

confidential
us urgent

Washington, August 16, 1947—3 p.m.

357. Dept has been considering US attitude if, as expected, Soviets after SC debate on UN membership vote against recommending admission of Eire, Portugal and Transjordan as well as five new applicants.

In this event Dept proposes that immediately after SC has voted on each individual application, US should introduce resolution along following lines:

“The SC has given careful consideration to the requests for admission to membership of (applicants rejected by SC).

“In view of differences of opinion as to the application to the states mentioned in the preceding paragraph of the criteria for admission to the UN set forth in Article 4 of the Charter, and in order to prevent these differences from causing further indefinite delays in the admission of states which a number of members of the SC deem qualified for membership:

“The SC requests the GA to consider the qualifications of the above-mentioned applicants and will, in this instance, immediately recommend to the GA the admission of any of the above-mentioned applicants which the GA shall have considered qualified for admission.”

In introducing this resolution, US should state that it will maintain in GA same position re each applicant as it took in SC, unless changed circumstances in the interim justify a change in our conclusions as to its qualifications.

Draft statement to be made in SC on introduction of above resolution will be brought to New York by Hayden Raynor.

Applicants approved by SC (probably only Yemen) should be handled in a separate resolution.

Dept assumes you will vote on applications in accordance with US views expressed in SC Membership Committee, favoring Eire, Portugal, Transjordan, Italy, Austria and Yemen and opposing Albania, Mongolian People’s Republic, Hungary, Rumania and Bulgaria.¹

Lovett

1. Subsequent consideration of these matters by United Nations organs was affected, of course, by the entering into force of certain of the peace treaties.