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

501.BB/7–2447

The Director of the Office of Special Political Affairs ( Rusk ) to Mr. John Foster Dulles ¹

Washington , July 30, 1947.

Dear Mr. Dulles: As Alger Hiss’ successor in the Office of Special Political Affairs,² I should like to say that I was delighted to learn that you would be willing to serve as a Representative on the U.S. Delegation to the next meeting of the General Assembly. Please feel free to call upon me at any time for any information or service which you might need—one of our principal jobs is to see that everything possible is done to permit the Delegation to function with maximum effect.³

Regarding your note of July 24 to the Secretary,⁴ I wonder if it would not be profitable for me to call at your convenience in New York to bring you up to date on the matters expected to arise in the General Assembly and the state of our preparation and tentative plans for Delegation organization.

If you could indicate an hour on any day next week which would be convenient, I’d greatly appreciate it.

Sincerely yours,

Dean Rusk

1. Mr. Dulles was one of four persons who had been nominated by President Truman for consideration by the Senate for appointment as United States Representatives to the Second Session of the General Assembly of the United Nations, to be held in New York September 16. For a list of the four Representatives and five Alternate Representatives comprising the United States Delegation, see p. 4.
2. The Office of Special Political Affairs (SPA) was the Office in the Department of State chiefly responsible for handling United Nations affairs, in close coordination with the geographic Offices. SPA was made up of three divisions: International Organization Affairs (chiefly matters pertaining to the General Assembly), International Security Affairs (primarily Security Council matters), and Dependent Area Affairs (matters relating to Non-Self-Governing and Trust Territories). Alger Hiss was Director of SPA from its inception in 1945 until early 1947; Dean Rusk became the incumbent on March 5, 1947.
3. In preparation for the General Assembly session, SPA drafted numerous position papers based on the principal agenda items as known at the time. These were organized on a Committee basis into a series of papers, “the SD series” (State Department position papers, as opposed to “the US series” which generally were the same papers as modified by discussions at United States Delegation meetings at New York). Thus, a paper relating to trusteeship matters would carry the symbol SD [State Department]/A [General Assembly]/C.4 [Committee 4]/[the appropriate number in the series]. By 1948 the SD series had become formalized as the Department’s official instructions to the United States Delegation.
4. Not printed.