IO Files: US/A/336

Memorandum of Conversation, by Mr. Adlai E. Stevenson of the United States Delegation

secret
Participants: Honorable Hector McNeil, United Kingdom Representative to the General Assembly
Gladwyn Jebb,1 United Kingdom Delegation to the General Assembly
John Rob,2 United Kingdom Delegation to the General Assembly
Adlai Stevenson, United States Delegation

Hector McNeil invited me to lunch today to discuss elections to the Security Council. He expressed the view that Czechoslavakia would prefer not to be elected to the Security Council for obvious reasons and also because it preferred to be reelected to the Economic and Social Council. He is personally sympathetic with this position and seems to attach considerable importance to Czechoslovakia’s continuation on the Economic and Social Council.

As an alternative to Yugoslavia or Ukrainia he proposed, personally and without consultation with the Foreign Office, India, because (1) he does not believe U.S.S.R. entitled necessarily to two places on the Security Council; (2) he sees no satisfactory alternative to Czechoslavakia; (3) India wants the position to further her effort to gain Asiatic leadership, and (4) India might be the least unpalatable to U.S.S.R. of the States outside the Eastern European block.

He asked for some reaction from the American Delegation by Thursday afternoon because he had not submitted this proposal to Bevin3 and deemed it useless to do so if we were hostile to his idea.

His Delegation does not support him in this entirely. Although I gathered that some of them, at least, share his views that the U.S.S.R. is not necessarily entitled to two seats on the Security Council and are sympathetic to the position of Czechoslavakia, they have some misgiving about the behavior of India on the Security Council were she [Page 130] elected, and even greater misgiving about finding a suitable alternative if India was not elected.

I also gathered that the United Kingdom Delegation does not consider the Ukraine intolerable as a candidate for the Security Council. Further, there seems to be a feeling in their Delegation that by supporting India for the Security Council and Czechoslavakia for reelection to the Economic and Social Council, they would not only antagonize U.S.S.R. but also Poland which aspires to Czechoslavakia’s seat on the Economic and Social Council.

McNeil was quite candid about the division in his Delegation and his reluctance to pursue his idea further without an indication of our position. He concluded by saying that he had not consulted Canada with regard to their view of the effect of his proposal on Canada’s candidacy for the Security Council, i.e., two Dominions.

In this conversation McNeill also indicated to me that Argentina was making a strong bid for the Economic and Social Council and that his Delegation might have to support her for “bread and butter” reasons.

On the matter of financing the Headquarters building McNeil’s “confident guess” was that the Cabinet would prefer to go ahead if a private or Government-dollar loan was forthcoming from this country so that the immediate dollar demand on the United Kingdom would be minimized. He did not seem to feel strongly about the “indignity” of a private loan.

  1. H. M. G. Jebb, Principal Adviser of the British Delegation to the General Assembly.
  2. J. V. Rob, Private Secretary to the Minister of State (McNeil).
  3. Ernest Bevin, British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.