Office of the Historian

IO Files: US(P)/A/C.1/127/Rev.

United States Delegation Memorandum of Conversations

confidential
[Paris,] October 14, 1948.

Subject: Belgian Proposal for Census and Verification of Conventional Armaments.1

  • Participants:
    (a)
    Mr. Langenhove, Belgian Delegation
    Capt. Page Smith, United States Delegation
    Mr. Ridgway B. Knight, United States Delegation
    (b)
    Mr. Parodi, French Delegation
    Capt. Page Smith, United States Delegation
    Mr. Ridgway B. Knight, United States Delegation

summary

Efforts were made to convince both Messrs. Langenhove and Parodi that any system of census of armed forces with verification should not be adopted at the present time by Committee I and by the General [Page 470] Assembly. Detailed argumentation was used with Mr. Langenhove. The conversation with Mr. Parodi on the other hand took place just before the start of the Committee I session and in view of the lack of time it was only possible to stress our position in general terms.

details

The arguments used with Mr. Langenhove follow:

(1)
It is obviously impossible to arrive at national quotas before the question of atomic energy control is settled. It was also pointed out that any census of troops and its verification constitute substantive steps which should fall within the purview of the CCA, and that such steps can only be taken under improved general conditions which would require settlement of the atomic energy problem and signing of the peace treaties, among other things.
(2)
Census at the present time would be meaningless, as new and perhaps unrelated quotas would have to be set for the security of the various nations in the eventual proposals formulated by the CCA. Present strengths in some cases would have to be reduced while others might have to be increased.
(3)
Any attempt at present to verify census figures furnished by the USSR would certainly be opposed and would result in increased friction and propaganda battles with the Soviets.
(4)
Any figures supplied by the Soviets at present and which would not be verified would surely be false and misleading. They would provide no worthwhile basis for the study and establishment of a permanent quota.
(5)
The Committee for Conventional Armaments is now attempting to do on a broader scale just what the Belgian suggestion proposed to do in part.
(6)
If the Belgian suggestion be advanced as a propaganda move, it will back-fire, because the Soviets will demand census and verification of atomic armaments—and reiterate their contentions as to the inseparability of solution of the atomic and conventional arms problems.

  1. The proposal under reference was introduced in Subcommittee 12 as document A/C.1/SC.12/2, October 23, consisting of an amendment to French draft resolution A/C.1/325, October 13. The operative part of the latter draft read as follows:

    “The General Assembly recommends the Security Council

    (1)
    To establish a control system on the following bases:
    (a)
    The setting up of an organ for the control of conventional armaments endowed with appropriate powers,
    (b)
    The transmission by States to the control organ at periodic intervals of declarations of their effectives and their conventional armaments,
    (c)
    The control of such declarations by the organ so set up, by means of checking items on the spot,
    (d)
    The publication by the Secretary-General of the United Nations of the declarations received;
    (2)
    To promote a general limitation of armaments by a progressive and balanced reduction of effectives and of conventional armaments;
    (3)
    To report to the General Assembly no later than its next regular session on the effect given to the present recommendation with a view to enabling it to continue its activity with regard to disarmament, in accordance with the purposes and principles defined by the Charter.” For full text, see GA (III/1), First Committee, Annexes, pp. 12–13.

    The Belgian amendment, A/C.1/SC.12/2, read in its operative part as follows:

    “[The General Assembly] recommends the Security Council to pursue the study of regulation and reduction of conventional armaments and armed forces through the agency of the Commission for Conventional Armaments in order to obtain concrete results in implementing Article 26 of the Charter as soon as the improvement in international atmosphere permits;

    Trusts that the Commission for Conventional Armaments, in carrying out its programme, will devote its main attention to formulating proposals for the receipt, checking and publication, by an international organ of control endowed with universally accepted powers, of full information to be supplied by Member States with regard to their effectives and their conventional armaments;

    Invites the Security Council to report to it no later than its next regular session on the effect given to the present recommendation with a view to enabling it to continue its activity with regard to the regulation of armaments in accordance with the purposes and principles defined by the Charter.”

    For full text, as subsequently amended and ultimately approved by the General Assembly, see p. 503.

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