Editorial Note
On March 10, Ján Papánek, then the Permanent Representative of Czechoslovakia to the United Nations, addressed to the Secretary-General of the United Nations a letter denouncing the Communist seizure of power in Czechoslovakia and requesting that the question be brought before the United Nations Security Council for consideration. For the text of Papánek’s letter, see Department of State Bulletin, March 28, 1948, pages 409–410, or Documents on American Foreign Relations, Volume X, January 1–December 31, 1948, Edited by Raymond Dennett and Robert K. Turner (Princeton University Press, 1950), pages 625–627. In a communication to the United Nations Secretary General dated March 12, 1948, Hernan Santa Cruz, Permanent Representative of Chile to the United Nations, requested that the issue raised in Papánek’s letter be included on the agenda of the Security Council. For the text of Ambassador Santa Cruz’s letter, see Department of State Bulletin, pages 409–411. At its meeting on March 17, the Security Council voted to include the Chilean communication [Page 745] on its agenda and to invite the Chilean representative to participate in the Council’s discussions of the matter. For the text of the statement by Ambassador Warren R. Austin, United States Representative in the Security Council, on March 17 in favor of including the Czechoslovak question on the Council’s agenda, see ibid., pages 411–412. During March, April, and May 1948, the Security Council considered the Czechoslovak question. On May 24, a Chilean draft resolution, introduced by the representative of Argentina and supported by the United States, calling for the establishment of a special sub-committee to investigate the Czechoslovak question, failed to receive Security Council approval due to negative vote of the Soviet Union. For the texts of statements by Ambassador Austin on March 28, April 4, April 18, and April 25 at various stages in the Security Council’s deliberations, see ibid., April 4, page 446, April 18, page 517, and April 25, page 536. For a review of the consideration of the Czechoslovak question by the Security Council, see Yearbook of the United’ Nations 194–7–48, Department of Public Information, United Nations, Lake Success, New York (New York: 1949), pages 451–458.