IO Files: US/S/1028
Memorandum of Conversation, by Mr. Edward P. Maffitt, Adviser, United States Mission at the United Nations
Ambassador Gross called by appointment on Baron de la Tournelle this morning and discussed General McNaughton’s démarche regarding the possible reopening of discussion in the Security Council on implementation of Article 43. He opened the conversation with a few words regarding our position on the matter, saying that Washington is considering the present situation and the relationship of conventional armaments and atomic energy with Article 43 and that during this consideration it appeared unlikely that the United States would be prepared to discuss Article 43 in the Security Council. In the meanwhile we wanted to explore generally the views of our French and British colleagues and he was beginning with the French Delegation.
La Tournelle, speaking from notes and at times apparently reading from them, said that McNaughton had spoken to him of this matter and had been told that the French Delegation would welcome Security Council discussion of Article 43 since it is a part of the Charter which has not yet been implemented and since such implementation is a prerequisite to effective regulation and reduction of conventional armaments and weapons of mass destruction. Anything that could be done to advance toward implementation should be tried. The French would, however, not take the initiative and would not raise the matter if the British and ourselves did not want it raised.
Apropos of the United States position La Tournelle wished to ask a question. Recently some “Americans” had given him to believe that they did not favor implementation of Article 43 on the ground that it would be impossible to work with the USSR forces which would be part of the overall UN force at the call of the Security Council. He wondered if our position was changing. Ambassador Gross replied that in no way had there been a change in the position as stated by such American officials as Secretary of State Marshall and Ambassador Austin. We considered that regulation and reduction of armaments presupposed implementation of Article 43. Did the Baron think that the point of view of his American friends, who it was assumed were official, was superficial? La Tournelle immediately answered with a smiling “yes”, saying he thought these people missed the essential point that if the USSR consented to cooperate in implementing the Article, the situation which they feared and which undeniably [Page 244] existed, would thereby have ceased to exist. It would presuppose a basic alteration in the Russian attitude.
Ambassador Gross agreed with the logic of La Tournelle’s premise but said that there was another premise which concerned some people, to wit: suspicion, and uncertainty as to our national security during what might be called a transition period from the present situation to one of cooperation. He stressed again, however, that this did not in any sense mean American policy had changed. The gentlemen in question, whoever they were, did not speak for their government.
There followed then a discussion of various factors in the inability of the Military Staff Committee to agree on basic principles and of other details connected with the Article 43 negotiations in the Council and in the Military Staff Committee over the last several years. La Tournelle spoke with seemingly great frankness and appeared more than willing to cooperate in all possible ways with the US Mission on the matter in question. He thought that informal conversations among the British, the Americans and the French might serve to bring about a unanimity of position which would materially strengthen the Western position in the Council against the day discussion would be reopened. On the matter of overall strength, on which the French position had been far more modest than the United States’, he pointed out that in the beginning of the Military Staff Committee discussions on this point France had possessed no military establishment capable of supplying even two divisions of ground troops to the Security Council forces but that now, with United States assistance, she was regaining her military strength and need no longer fear embarrassment by inability to meet the obligation of furnishing substantial force under Article 43. She might now be expected to come closer to our position in this regard.
The meeting broke up with Mr. Gross telling the Baron that he proposed to call on the British and asking whether the French views might be passed on to them. The Baron readily assented.