Department of State Disarmament Files
Memorandum of Conversation, by Mr. Donald C. Blaisdell, Special Assistant to the Director
of the Office of United Nations Affairs (Rusk)
secret
[Washington,] May 18, 1948.
Subject: Suspension of the Work of the United Nations Atomic
Energy Commission, Commission for Conventional Armaments, and the Military
Staff Committee
| Participants: |
Mr. D. D. Maclean, British Embassy1
|
|
Mr. J. N. Henderson, British Embassy2
|
|
Mr. Gullion, Department of State |
|
Mr. Elliott, Department of State |
|
Mr. Leith, Department of State |
|
Mr. Blaisdell, Department of State |
At their request, Messrs. Maclean and Henderson of the British Embassy called
on me this morning and left the attached Aide-Mémoire
(595/–/48, dated May 18, 1948). I asked Messrs. Gullion, Elliott and Leith
to be present at the meeting.
Upon finishing a reading of the attached Aide-Mémoire,
I asked Mr. Gullion if he felt he wished to make any comments or any
observations at the present time. I said that so far as I was concerned I
would wish to have an opportunity to re-read the Aide-Mémoire and reflect upon it before making any comment. Mr.
Gullion remarked that he too thought that the matter raised by the Aide-Mémoire should be thoroughly “ingested” in the
Department before any reaction was forthcoming.
Mr. Elliott asked if a similar Aide-Mémoire were being
left with governments of the other members of the Atomic Energy Commission
majority. Mr. Maclean replied that only the French Government was being
approached.
Before concluding the discussion, Mr. Gullion inquired whether either Mr.
Maclean or Mr. Henderson was familiar with the study program which the
Foreign Office may be undertaking with respect to international atomic
energy control. Mr. Maclean replied that he was familiar only in a general
way; that the British Government would be reviewing the situation before the
next session of the General Assembly. At this point Mr. Henderson
interjected a comment that he was not clear whether paragraph 7 of the Aide-Mémoire referred to a survey by the British
Government alone or by the British
[Page 343]
and United States Governments. He said he was inclined to the latter
interpretation.
I said that the Department would give this prompt attention and that we would
be in touch with the British Embassy when we were prepared to comment.
[Annex]
Aide-Mémoire3
The British Foreign Secretary has been reviewing the stage now reached in
the work of the Atomic Energy Commission, the Commission for
Conventional Armaments, and of the Military Staff Committee on the
agreements prescribed in Article 43 of the United Nations Charter.
2. As the United States Government is aware, the Atomic Energy Commission
is now considering a report to be made to the Security Council to the
general effect that no further progress in its present task can be
achieved without an improvement in the international situation and
recommending that the matter be brought to the attention of the General
Assembly (the Commission’s Parent Body).
3. The United States Government will be aware that in existing
circumstances no real progress is likely to be achieved in their
allotted tasks either by (a) the Commission for
Conventional Armaments or by (b) the Military
Staff Committee. As to (a) it appears highly
improbable that the Commission will agree on a report on the basic
principles on which a system of disarmament should be reached, failing
which there seems no use in taking up further items in the Commission’s
plan of work. As to (b) the Military Staff
Committee has failed to reach agreement on several of the most important
of the general principles which it has formulated as requiring agreement
before the individual agreements between members of the United Nations
and the Security Council postulated in Article 43 can be drawn up. Its
report has for several months been before the Security Council which has
made little progress and shows no signs of making more. Discussion in
the Committee on the strength of the proposed security forces has also
failed to produce agreement and can hardly be usefully prolonged.
4. Mr. Bevin4 considers that if these three
bodies, in the circumstances described above, merely go on in their
present grooves, not only
[Page 344]
can
no useful result be achieved, but the United Nations will be discredited
and the all-important issues at stake will become befogged and belittled
with very serious results. Mr. Bevin thinks therefore the time has come
when there ought to be a breathing space as regards work in all three
fields, and with this aim he proposes the following procedure.
5. During the next few weeks the work of the three bodies on the tasks at
present before them shall be allowed to come independently to a
standstill. The Security Council should receive successively reports
from the three bodies announcing the view of the majority that no
further progress can be made, and should thereupon direct those bodies
to suspend the work on which they are engaged. There would of course
(Mr. Bevin is particularly anxious to make this clear) be no question of
suspending the three bodies themselves. It could be recommended that the
Security Council report the situation to the next ordinary session of
the General Assembly as a matter of special concern.
6. In the Security Council Mr. Bevin would propose to instruct Sir A.
Cadogan to make it clear that His Majesty’s Government remain most
anxious to see progress made on these vital questions of atomic energy,
disarmament and security, and that this desire is not diminished by
their belief that the present discussions cannot usefully be continued
and should therefore be suspended.
7. His Majesty’s Government would then be prepared for a major discussion
of the issues involved at the General Assembly next autumn and in the
meantime they would carefully survey their policy in all three fields
with the aim of trying to give a fresh start to the work if conditions
at the time of the Assembly permit.
8. His Majesty’s Government must of course be ready to counter vigorously
accusations by the Soviet Government that the machinery as well as the
atmosphere of peace is being destroyed by an organized conspiracy. His
Majesty’s Government’s general line on this might fee, as stated above,
that they are most anxious to make progress, that no one disputes the
right of the Soviet Government to their own views, but that they have so
far shown themselves quite unwilling to try to adjust those views to the
views of other governments.
9. Though not optimistic, Mr. Bevin thinks it is conceivable that the
action proposed successively in the three fields in question may have
some effect on the Russians in thinking over their policy during the
intervening months before the General Assembly.
10. The British Embassy have been asked to put the foregoing views to the
State Department and to express Mr. Bevin’s hope that the State
Department will agree to instruct the United States representative in
the Security Council on the above lines.
Washington, May 18,
1948.
