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

IO Flies: US/A/292

Memorandum of Telephone Conversation, by the Deputy Director of the Office of Special Political Affairs (Sandifer)

confidential

[Washington,] September 12, 1947.

Mr. Johnson¹ called to give me a report on the meeting last night of the Big Five with Mr. Lie to discuss the question of slates.

I. General Committee²

President.—Mr. Johnson said that Senator Austin said that our position on the Presidency had not been finally determined. He indicated that if Mr. Spaak came and would be available through most of the session we would support him. If Mr. Spaak is not available our present preference would be for Mr. Evatt or Mr. Aranha. However, we would not decide our position as between these two until we had information as to the measure of support for them.

Vice Presidents.—Mr. Johnson reported no special comment on this except to say that Gromyko insisted strongly on two Committee chairmanships for Eastern Europe. In other words he was not willing to accept a Vice Presidency. I told Mr. Johnson that we had considered this question very carefully and that we felt very strongly that two Committee chairmanships gave an entirely unjustifiable strength to the Eastern European countries in the actual work of the Assembly. We are willing to go along with three places on the General Committee for Eastern Europe but we are Completely opposed to two Committee chairmanships. He said that he agreed and that he thought that there was support for this position among the other countries.

• Committee 1.—Gromyko asked for the Chairmanship of Committee 1 as one of the two chairmanships he wanted for Eastern Europe. There was unanimity among the other four in rejecting this request. Senator Austin said that we would prefer Evatt or Aranha for this post depending upon the outcome of the election to the Presidency.
• Committees 2 and 3.—Gromyko would prefer a Polish representative as Committee Chairman over Masaryk. He apparently has some hope that Masaryk may be elected to the Presidency. However, he would prefer to have the Polish representative as Chairman of Committee 3 (since he considers this a more important Committee in this Assembly). Mr. Johnson suggested that it might be possible to shift Iran to the Second Committee. On our slate it had been listed tentatively for Committee 3. He thought that since we would insist on cutting the Russians down to one Committee chairmanship, we might agree to have them as Chairman of Committee 3.
• Committee 4.—No comments on this Committee.
• Committee 5.—Mr. Johnson said that Mr. Malik³ of Lebanon had been suggested as a possibility for this Committee. I did not understand clearly whether this was Mr. Johnson’s suggestion or whether it originated at the meeting. I told him that I thought that Mr. Malik was primarily a philosopher and seemed to be quite unfitted for this Committee. He said that he did not know Mr. Malik’s personal qualifications. I reminded Mr. Johnson that our slate had called for a Canadian Chairman which might be Mr. Ilsley,⁴ Finance [Justice?] Minister. He referred in that connection to the suggestion that had been made for the Ad Hoc Committee for Palestine.
• Committee 6.—Mr. Johnson said that there was general agreement that it was important that the Chairman of Committee 6 should be a jurist. No particular state or name was suggested.

“Ad Hoc” Committee for Palestine.—It was suggested that Mr. Pearson⁵ of the Canadian Delegation would make a good Chairman for this Committee. Mr. Lie supported this proposal strongly. Senator Austin pointed out that there might be some difficulty in suggesting an alternate Delegate for a position of this importance.

Mr. Gromyko did not bring up the question of the Stettinius commitment.⁶

I reminded Mr. Johnson that our slate had called for three Latin American places on the General Committee, one of which would be Mexico for Vice President. He said that he thought there would be no difficulty in getting appointment to three places for Latin America. I told him I thought there might if we did not succeed in heading off two chairmanships for Eastern Europe.

1. At this time the United States Mission at the United Nations (USUN) was headed by Senator Warren R. Austin who was United States Representative at (the Seat of) the United Nations with the rank of ambassador. He also functioned as Senior Representative of the United States to the General Assembly and Head of the United States Delegation to the General Assembly (in the absence of the Secretary of State), and as United States Representative on the Security Council. Ambassador Herschel V. Johnson was Deputy United States Representative on the Security Council, and in this position functioned in effect as the second-ranking officer at the United States Mission (there being no position at this time of Deputy United States Representative at the United Nations).
2. Apparently intended to be the first of two memoranda in which Sandifer reported a telephone conversation with Ambassador Johnson, regarding elections to the General Committee (this memorandum) and to the Security Council (the second memorandum); for the second memorandum see infra.
3. Charles Malik, Lebanese Minister to the United States.
4. J. L. Ilsley.
5. Lester B. Pearson, Canadian Under-Secretary of State for External Affairs.
6. It has not been possible to clarify the reference to the “Stettinius commitment.” Discussions relating to elections to the General Committee held at London in January 1946, when Mr. Stettinius led the U.S. Delegation to the first part of First Session of the General Assembly, are printed in Foreign Relations, 1946, vol. i, pp. 117–250, passim.