Editorial Note
Pursuant to the resolutions of August 15, 1947 of the Economic and’ Social Council of the United Nations (ECOSOC) on freedom of information and of the press, the United Nations Conference on Freedom of Information convened at Geneva, Switzerland on March 23, 1948. This was the culmination of a series of events relating to freedom of information that occurred in several United Nations bodies from the beginning of the Organization in 1946: (1) the January 4, 1946 proposal of the Philippine Commonwealth at the initiatory meetings of the General Assembly in London that there be convened an international conference of the press; and the action of the General Assembly in placing the item on the agenda, for its session in New York later in 1946. (2) ECOSOC approval on June 21, 1946 of a modified United States proposal for the establishment by the Commission on Human Rights of a Sub-Commission on Freedom of Information and of the Press. (3) Adoption by the General Assembly on December 14, 1946 of a revised Philippine proposal for the holding of an international conference on freedom of information during the year 1947. (4) Establishment on May 19, 1947 of the Sub-Commission on Freedom of Information and of the Press and its drafting of an agenda for the proposed conference. (5) The ECOSOC resolutions of August 15, 1947 in which were formulated the projected organization and provisional agenda of the conference: (6) The very extensive discussion of the draft agenda by the Third Committee of the General Assembly, at the General Assembly’s second session in New York, on October 3, 4, 6, and 7, 1947 in connection ‘with a draft resolution of the Soviet’: Union; and later on October 24, 25, 28, and 29, 1947 in connection with a draft resolution of Yugoslavia on the dissemination of slanderous reports. (7) The approval by the General Assembly on November 17, 1947 of Resolution 132 (III), taking note of the provisional agenda prepared by ECOSOC for the impending freedom of information conference; and calling ECOSOC’s attention “to the discussion on this matter” in the Third Committee.
[Page 308]The United States approached the freedom of information conference with “considerable pessimism”, attested to in public documentation by the Official Report itself of the United States Delegation (Department of State Publication 3150, Report of the United States Delegates with Related Documents, United Nations Conference on Freedom Information, Geneva, Switzerland, March 23–April 21, 1948, United States Government Printing Office, 1948). A principal reason for this pessimism was the “Communist-propaganda attack, which made considerable headway, carried on both within and without the United Nations against the American press and other organs of opinion.” (ibid., page 2) These developments had occurred at the second regular session of the General Assembly in the autumn of 1947, as evidenced by Communist-bloc charges of “warmongering” by the United States, the Yugoslav draft resolution on slanderous reporting, and the debate in the Third Committee on the draft agenda of the impending conference and the issue of freedom of information itself. The deep concern of the United States Government at these events, and the planning that went into the formulation of pre-conference potions to counter-act these developments at the conference itself, is amply reflected in the official files of the United States Delegation to the conference (see last paragraph).
The United States Delegation the Freedom of Information Conference consisted of ten members, with an advisory staff of fifteen officers most of whom were from the Department of State. The Delegation was led by William Benton, Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs until shortly before the conference met. The public members of the Delegation were all persons of prominence in the media. For the official list see Department of State Bulletin, March 21, 1948, page 378.
The overall conference strategy of the United States Delegation as described by the Delegation Chairman was to orient the conference to “freedom of information” rather than “obligations of the press” which meant legal controls. Thus at the outset of the conference the United States Delegation introduced a draft resolution on the general principles of freedom of information; and also a proposal for an international convention to guarantee newspaper correspondents greater access to news and greater freedom in its transmission (a “news-gathering” convention). Also as described by the Delegation Chairman, the United States program also projected taking the initiative in proposing nonrestrictive remedies (as opposed to legal controls) for abuses of the press, based primarily on the moral responsibility of information agencies. Thus, the United States proposed the right of official correction, that is, a plan for international procedures whereby [Page 309] a government might submit its refutation of damaging press reports to the Secretary-General of the United Nations. The Delegation also introduced a draft resolution condemning “warmongering” rand the dissemination of slanderous information. On the other; hand, the United States was unwilling to support the establishment of elaborate United Nations machinery with wide authority for investigatory or even coercive powers. The United States program was to counter such a move with a proposal to establish on a permanent basis the ECOSOC Sub-Commission on Freedom of Information and of the Press. All of the United States proposals were adopted in one form or another, some substantially intact (as the resolution on general principles), others in varying degrees of modification (as the resolution on propaganda inciting to war and false reporting, and the newsgathering convention).
The results of the United Nations Conference on Freedom of Information, which extended from March 23 to April 21, 1948, were incorporated into a Final Act which consisted of a general statement on conference organization and procedures (including the implementing of decisions in the post-conference period) and three annexes. Annex A consisted of the three draft conventions adopted by the Conference: (1) the Draft Convention on the Gathering and International Transmission of News (“the United States Convention”); (2) the Draft Convention Concerning the Institution of an International Eight of Correction (“the French Convention”) (on the basis of an initial United States proposal); and (3) the Draft Convention on Freedom of Information (“the British Convention”). Annex B consisted of the Conference drafts of articles on freedom of information to be incorporated respectively into the Draft Declaration on Human Rights and the Draft Convention on Human Rights, then being formulated by the ECOSOC Commission on Human Rights. Annex C comprised 43 resolutions adopted by the Conference. Resolution 1, slightly modified, incorporated the United States draft on general principles of freedom of information and of the press. For the official text of the Final Act see United Nations Document E/CONF.6/79, April 22, 1948. A text of the Final Act is included as an appendix to the Official Report of the United States Delegation (see second paragraph).
There is ample documentation on the 1948 United Nations Freedom of Information Conference and related events (both antecedent and later) in the office lot files of the Department of State. The official United States Delegation file is in Lot 58–D443, Boxes 112 and 113. Box 112 contains a telegram file, the central correspondence file and memoranda of conversations. The internal conference documentation of the Delegation—minutes of delegation meetings, delegation working [Page 310] papers, conference summaries, press releases—and official Conference documentation are located in Box 113. (The official Conference documentation is unclassified and is in ECOSOC’s E/CONF.6 series. This documentation is organized on the basis of papers (including summary minutes), relating to plenary meetings of the Conference and to the meeting of the four main committees of the Conference.) Lot 126, Box 427 holds useful unorganized information regarding the Conference. Other office dot files contain unorganized (but useful) historical information mainly of the pre-Conference period (Lot 60D400, Box 565 and again Lot 126, Box 427; but one file additionally has documentation from the post-Conference period, 1948–1962 (Lot 69D308, Box 488).