Foreign Relations of the United States, 1949, National Security Affairs, Foreign Economic Policy, Volume I

Department of State Disarmament Files

Memorandum of Conversation, by the Executive Secretary of the Executive Committee on Regulation of Armaments (Shooshan)

secret

[New York,] June 20, 1949.

US/S/C.3/22

Subject: Implementation by the Commission for Conventional Armaments of the General Assembly Resolution of November 19, 1948, on Census and Verification of Conventional Armaments and Effectives.

Participants:	Mr. Ignatieff, Mr. Starnes, Major Pierce-Goulding; Canadian Delegation.
	Colonel Penette, Major Fournier; French Delegation.
	Sir Terence Shone, Mr. Cole; United Kingdom Delegation.
	Mr. Nash, Mr. Russell; United States Mission.
	Colonel Townsely; U.S. Military Staff Committee.
	Mr. Shooshan; Department of State.

A meeting was held at the United States Mission to discuss the French Working Paper introduced into the CCA Working Committee by the French Delegation on May 26, 1949.¹

Sir Terence Shone advised the group that his delegation had received comprehensive views from London with respect to the position to be taken by the UK on the French Working Paper. The substance of London’s comments was to approve the French Working Paper as a basis for discussion with certain changes described as “minor in nature” to be suggested in due course. He called particular attention to the reversal of thinking represented in the present view of the UK as regards the adequacy of verification and the conclusion that freedom of access to information for purposes of verification should be emphasized even more strongly than in the present French Paper. Particularly, he stated that “fool-proof verification”, which was required, could be produced by allowing almost unrestricted access to the sources from which the census reports were to be derived. Sir Terence pointed out more specifically that on the matter of verification there appeared to be at least two approaches. First, that contained in the present French Paper which, in essence, would provide to the control authority the various administrative organization plans of the armed forces of the respective countries on the basis of which sampling would be instituted. The second alternative, on which the UK was developing its own thinking, was to have nations make their orders of battle available to the control authority for verification purposes.

Mr. Ignatieff stated that the Canadian Government had approved the French Paper and that with minor wording changes were quite prepared to approve the paper in its present form and content.

Mr. Nash likewise advised the group that the U.S. was quite satisfied with the French proposals as a basis for discussion except for minor re-wording suggestions which would be offered at some later date in the work of the Working Committee.

Discussion then took place of the nature of the various proposals for re-wording the French Paper in the course of which Sir Terence indicated that specific wording to cover the emphasis desired on “freedom of access” would have to await instructions from a sub-committee in London assigned to develop that concept into specific wording. However, should events move quickly, Sir Terence indicated that such wording could undoubtedly be worked out equally quickly.

In the course of further discussion, it was agreed that should the U.S.S.R. denounce the whole exercise, as appeared certain, that this would not alter the Working Committee’s consideration of the French Paper and all agreed that the Working Committee should continue its discussions in order to arrive at at least a majority approved set of proposals which would not be unlike those contained in the present French Paper, plus the new section on Organization yet to be introduced into the Working Committee, which would constitute the basis for a report to the Security Council and the General Assembly.

In response to a UK inquiry regarding the views of the group on changing the proposed paragraph regarding implementation so as to require only the approval of the five permanent members of the SC prior to implementation and thus “put the finger” quickly on the Soviet Union, other representatives present expressed themselves on the deficiencies of that suggestion, pointing out in particular the importance of making the measures broader than the five permanent members of the SC. In this connection, the British particularly asked about the importance of simultaneity in the submission of census reports on which point all agreed that the statement as presently found in the French Paper should remain and was, in fact, most important though there was recognition that in the verification phase of these proposals such verification might well be applied initially to the five permanent members of the SC.

In response to an inquiry by Mr. Nash regarding the desirability of the inclusion of representatives of other delegations who were members of the CCA in advance preparatory discussions, the UK agreed to approach the Norwegian member and sound him out on making a statement early in the Working Committee deliberations and, if possible, at the Working Committee meeting scheduled for June 21. The French representatives expressed disagreement with the idea of adding additional members to this type of advance deliberation on the theory that eventually such meetings would develop into meetings of nine members with only the U.S.S.R. and the Ukraine left out.

Mr. Nash asked the group to think about the reporting to the SC of the findings on Items 1 and 2 of the Plan of Work which were held up last August,² and to their possible inclusion as one part of the report contemplated to be submitted to the SC on these census and verification proposals. Mr. Nash then circulated a suggested Section III for the French Working Paper,³ dealing with the organizational phase of the census and verification proposals which, he stated, had approval of the U.S. In circulating the document, he suggested that it might be read with the idea of its introduction by the French, after further discussion and such modification or amendment as might be required, since they had introduced the first part of the proposals. However, he stated that if there was any reluctance to do so he was prepared to introduce it as a U.S. paper. Colonel Penette agreed that it would be desirable for the French to introduce the paper on this section of their original proposals and indicated that it would be referred to Paris immediately with that idea in mind. The other delegations represented likewise agreed to refer the paper promptly to their respective governments. All estimated that instructions on this paper might be expected within approximately two weeks.

H. M. Shooshan, Jr.

1. For text, see Sections I and II of the Report of the Commission for Conventional Armaments to the Security Council (S/1372), August 9, pp. 107 and 109.
2. See footnote 3, p. 12.
3. The draft under reference, document RAC D–34/2d. June 16, is not printed. For the text of Section III as introduced by the French Delegation on July 7 and ultimately approved with the working paper as a whole by the Working Committee and the Commission for Conventional Armaments, see Report of the CCA to the Security Council (S/1372), August 9, p. 106–113.