Foreign Relations of the United States, 1949, The United Nations; The Western Hemisphere, Volume II

IO Files: US/A/1840

Memorandum of Conversation, by Mr. Thomas F. Power, Jr., Deputy Secretary-General of the United States Mission at the United Nations

secret

[New York,] October 3, 1949.

Mr. Cordier¹ told me today that Mr. Vishinsky² had entertained at dinner on September 30 the Secretary-General, General Romulo, Dr. Arce³ and Dr. Padilla Nervo.⁴ Lie’s impression was that the dominating passion of the Soviets at this Assembly was hatred of Yugoslavia. In this connection General Romulo is considering proposing a deal whereby Yugoslavia’s Security Council candidacy would be dropped, in return for which Yugoslavia would be given a seat on ECOSOC, the first paragraph of the Soviet Resolution⁵ would be dropped, and the Soviets would adopt a more conciliatory attitude toward Greece and command Albania and Bulgaria to do likewise. In this connection Mr. Vishinsky was asked whether his statements indicated that the Soviet Union would adopt a more conciliatory attitude toward Greece. His answer was “Yes, of course”. The interpreter first translated Mr. Vishinsky’s answer as simply “yes”, whereupon Vishinsky corrected him, to add the words “of course”.

Mr. Cordier is advising Mr. Lie and Mr. Romulo that any quid pro quo from the Soviets must be of substantial size and not just as had been suggested by some that they would drop the first paragraph of their resolution.

I told Mr. Cordier for his personal background information that he should know that the Soviets had been taking a very strong line in the Austrian Treaty negotiations⁶ and were adamant in their demands. I asked him not to pass this information on, but to keep it in mind when the Soviets made promises. He speculated that this would fit in with the passion against the Yugoslavs, since it was quite possible that the Soviets wanted to stay on in Austria to keep the Red Army in a threatening position against Yugoslavia to the north, and at the same time might want to disengage Albania and Bulgaria from the attack on Greece, to enable them to attack Yugoslavia.

With these circumstances in mind, Mr. Cordier is delaying the plenary session of the Assembly at which the Security Council elections will be held until it can be seen whether there is a possibility of securing a real settlement of the Greek question. He agreed that the prospects of this would be better judged after the initial meetings with the Albanians and Bulgarians the early part of this week.

1. Andrew W. Cordier, Executive Assistant to the Secretary-General of the United Nations.
2. Andrey Yanuaryevich Vyshinsky, Soviet Minister for Foreign Affairs and Chairman of the Delegation of the Soviet Union to the General Assembly.
3. José Arce, Permanent Representative of Argentina at the United Nations and Head of the Argentine Delegation to the General Assembly.
4. Luis Padilla Nervo, Permanent Representative of Mexico at the United Nations and Head of the Mexican Delegation to the General Assembly.
5. For documentation regarding this matter, see pp. 72 ff.
6. For documentation regarding this subject, see vol. iii, pp. 1066 ff.