Foreign Relations of the United States, 1947, The Far East, Volume VI

856E.00/8–1347: Telegram

The Acting Secretary of State to the Acting United States Representative at the United Nations (Johnson)

restricted

Washington, August 13, 1947—6 p.m.

347. Re various questions raised in debate of Indonesian case on August 12. Following are Dept’s views which it might be helpful for you to know.

1. Renewal of Philippine request to participate in SC discussion. Dept believes US should continue to support Philippine application on basis that its interests as UN Member are specially affected in sense of Art 31.

2. Invitation to East Indonesia and Borneo to participate in SC discussion. As neither is a Member of UN, neither can be invited under Art 31 on ground of specially affected interests. If they ask to be admitted as parties to dispute they thus come within spirit of Art 32 as enunciated in your statement to SC on Aug 12 and should be admitted on same basis as Republic of Indonesia. In any event, they can properly be invited to supply Council with information or give other assistance under Rule 39 of SC Rules of Procedure and Dept considers that their invitation should be supported under this Rule.

3. If you consider it necessary to reply to Hodgson’s^92a question as to what was meant by tender of good offices by US, Dept believes it would be appropriate to reply along lines of Deptel 216 to Batavia of Aug 8, repeated to NY as No. 6 on Aug 9. In addition, you may wish to emphasize in Council that US tender of good offices was designed to bring parties together so that they themselves could take initiative in agreeing on method of settlement which would be most acceptable to them both and that US was hopeful that its assistance in this regard would expedite early agreement by the parties. Efforts of US were merely to simplify and facilitate bringing parties together and US does not wish to interfere with parties’ initiative in choice of particular method of settlement. If another means would be helpful in bringing the parties together, the US would be willing, of course, to withdraw its tender of good offices.

4. We note Belgian question as to which Art of Charter forms basis of Australian resolution for observers in area as agents of SC. In Dept’s view, para (a) of Aug 1 resolution was, in Charter effect, a provisional measure under Article 40 which expressly provides that such provisional measures shall be without prejudice to the rights, claims, or position of the parties concerned. Thus, in Dept’s opinion, if both parties consider observation of cease fire desirable or if one party insists that it is essential, dispatch of observers by SC to observe cease fire would simply be part of provisional measure already taken by SC in para (a) of Aug 1 resolution and would therefore be without prejudice to the rights, claims, or position of either party. It is, of course, also true that under general powers of SC set forth in Art 24, SC could appropriately dispatch observers to area. Dept sees no reason, however, why it should not be freely admitted that Council’s order to cease hostilities in its resolution of Aug 1 was in effect a provisional measure under Art 40.

5. Re Australian draft resolution (urtel 736, Aug 12).⁹³

Para (2) of Australian resolution is misleading in that it does not adequately reflect complete position of US with respect to its tender of good offices. A statement by you as contemplated in para 3 above would serve to clarify this point.

Para (3) of Australian resolution is not, of course, in accord with Dept’s basic policy on this point which remains as set forth in Deptel 345 to you dated Aug 12. Thus, para (3) of Australian resolution should be amended so as to make clear that such a commission would be established solely for the purpose of observing the parties’ compliance with para (a) of the SC’s resolution of Aug 1.

Lovett

1. Lt Col. William R. Hodgson, Australian representative at the United Nations.
93. Telegram 736 not printed. For text of Australian resolution submitted to the Security Council on August 12, see SC, 2nd yr., p. 1917, footnote 1. The resolution proposed the establishment of a Security Council commission to report directly to the Security Council on the situation in Indonesia subsequent to the Security Council cease-fire resolution of August 1.