800.014 Antarctic/2–1649

Memorandum of Conversation, by the Chief of the Division of Northern European Affairs (Hulley)

confidential
Participants: M. Christian de Margerie, Counselor, French Embassy
Mr. Benjamin M. Hulley, Chief, NOE
Mr. Caspar D. Green, NOE

M. de Margerie came in this afternoon at his request. He was interested in our reaction to the recent Soviet publicity on the subject of [Page 794] Antarctica.1 I told him that it was my feeling that since the Soviet statement was from an unofficial source, no official notice should be taken of it here. I said that I thought it indicated the desirability of coming to an agreement on the subject of Antarctica as promptly as possible since it must be assumed that this non-official Soviet notice will be followed in due course by some official action.2 M. de Margerie speculated as to the possible desirability of “letting sleeping dogs lie”, i.e., taking no further action of any kind and thus depriving the Soviets of any occasion for taking official interest in the subject. (This would seem to be a very optimistic basis on which to proceed.)

I handed M. de Margerie copies of the Belgian note of October 8 and of our reply of December 31, 1948.3

I mentioned to M. de Margerie that we are hopeful that the French Government will be able to give us a reply to our aide-mémoire of August 9, 1948 in the near future.4 At his request I gave him a brief recapitulation of the situation to date. Whether deliberately or unconsciously [Page 795] M. de Margerie’s remarks indicated his thinking that the position set forth in our aide-mémoire had been abandoned. I told him that this was not the case. He said he would inform Paris of our interest in receiving a reply.

Benjamin M. Hulley
  1. On February 11, the Soviet newspapers Pravda (the organ of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union) and Izvestiya (the organ of the Soviet Government) carried lengthy accounts of the February 10 meeting in Leningrad of the All-Union Geographic Society during which Academician Lev Semyonovich Berg, President of the Society, claimed that Russian navigators Captain (later Admiral) Faddei Bellinsgauzen (Thaddeus Bellingshausen) and Seaman (later Admiral) Mikhail Lazarev discovered certain Antarctic territories in 1819–1821. Berg asserted that the Soviet Union had as valid a claim to Antarctic territories as France. The All-Union Geographic Society passed a resolution stating that any decision affecting the Antarctic regime without Soviet participation would lack legal force and that the USSR had every justification not to recognize such decisions.-For a summary in English of the Pravda and Izvestiya accounts, see Current Digest of the Soviet Press, vol. i, No. 6, March 8, 1949, pp. 43–45. During the following two weeks a number of other newspaper articles appeared in Pravda, Izvestiya, and other Soviet newspapers regarding the Bellinsgauzen-Lazarev Antarctic discoveries (see ibid., No. 8, March 22, 1949, pp. 13–15). On March 22, Pravda and Izvestiya reported on the radio transmission to the Soviet Antarctic whaling flotilla of a letter from Geographic Society President Berg recalling that the flotilla was cruising the latitudes visited 130 years earlier by Bellinsgauzen and Lazarev and reminding the flotilla that Soviet scientists expected fresh Antarctic information from it (see ibid., No. 11, April 12, 1949, pp. 64–65).

    All of these newspaper stories were reported upon to the Department of State in communications from the Embassy in the Soviet Union.

  2. Hulley appraised the Soviet press publicity on Antarctica in similar terms in responses to separate oral inquiries on State Department thinking on the matter from British, Chilean, Australian, Norwegian, and New Zealand Embassy representatives during the week of February 14–21. Telegram 786, March 3, from London, not printed, reported the British Foreign Office feeling that the publicity indicated official Soviet interest (800.014 Antarctic/3–349).
  3. Regarding these notes, see the editorial note, Foreign Relations, 1948, vol. i, Part 2, p. 1010.
  4. For text of the aide-mémoire under reference, see ibid., p. 996. A French Embassy aide-mémoire of March 1, delivered to the Department of State on March 2, not printed, stated that French officials favored in principle the proposed negotiations on the Antarctic problem and could see nothing but advantages in the international scheme suggested by the United States. The aide-mémoire did indicate that the French Government felt that the internationalization of activities in Antarctica could be realized without the abandonment of national claims of sovereignty in the area (800.014 Antarctic/3–149).