Office of the Historian

IO Files: US/A/M(Chr)/111

Minutes of the Seventeenth Meeting of the United States Delegation to the Fourth Regular Session of the General Assembly,1 New York, October 12, 1949, 9 a. m.

New York, October 12, 1949, 9 a.m.
secret

[Here follows a list of persons (41) present.]

1. Soviet Proposal

Ambassador Austin described the conversations which he had carried on the preceding day with the President of the Assembly and the representatives of Mexico and Argentina. These conversations had been eminently satisfactory. Romulo had commented that our proposal would carry. Padilla Nervo had requested a copy of the resolution, but it had been explained to him that we were not giving it put at this time. He said he had some suggestions which he would wish to put forward later. Padilla Nervo liked the idea of joint sponsorship by the United States and United Kingdom. Ambassador Austin said that Dr. Arce had commented that he did not consider that the resolution conflicted with his draft proposal.

Ambassador Austin had explained that we could not accept his text, and although Dr. Arce had not committed himself to support our resolution, it had seemed to Ambassador Austin that he would go along.

Mr. Hickerson said that the political liaison officers under his direction had sounded out certain delegations on this matter, acting with [Page 110] considerable circumspection. Yesterday it had been learned that the item would not come up in Committee 1 this week. Possibly the Soviet Proposal might come up about Monday,2 although if Committee 1 had received the report of the Greek Conciliation Committee, it would consider that first. As he saw it, the result might be the postponement of the Soviet item for one or two weeks, which might change the atmosphere somewhat. For this reason, the liaison officers had taken great care to explain that our draft resolution was tentative. Some delegations had been permitted to read the resolution, while it had been summarized for others. There had not been one adverse reaction as regards the third paragraph, which began “notes with regret”. There had been an attempt to sound out the delegations specifically on that; the only suggestion made had been that it might be improved if instead of saying “a minority of states” the resolution referred explicitly to “the USSR”. Freitas-Valle3 of Brazil had thought the resolution perfect; his delegation would vote for it and make a speech if we wished them to do so. The other Latin American states also liked the resolution. Mr. Dreier4 noted that Costa Rica and Honduras had been generally favorable to our proposal and had insisted that there must be a substitute resolution. Ambassador Austin commented that this was a great advance, since he had understood that Panama and Costa Rica were working for paragraph three of the Soviet resolution, with some modification. Mr. Dreier said that the Colombian Delegation had thought the Soviet Union would make good propaganda out of the refusal of the United States and the United Kingdom to join the proposed peace pact.

Mr. Hickerson stated that a condensed summary of these conversations would be circulated to the Delegation. He noted that Tsiang5 had said China would support the resolution and had expressed the hope we would take some note of the fact that there was no use in entering into new treaties until present treaty obligations were observed. Sarper6 of Turkey had also been approached and had been shown a copy of the resolution with which he was in complete agreement. He was wholeheartedly supporting our position and was talking it up to other delegations as well.

[Here follows discussion of other subjects.]

  1. Information on the composition of the United States Delegation is included in documentation on organization and arrangements for the conduct of United States relations with the United Nations, pp. 1 ff.↩
  2. October 17.↩
  3. M. C. de Freitas Valle, Chairman of the Brazilian Delegation; Secretary-General of the Brazilian Ministry of External Relations.↩
  4. John C. Dreier, Adviser, United States Delegation; Chief of the Division of Special Inter-American Affairs, Department of State.↩
  5. Dr. Tingfu F. Tsiang, Chairman of the Chinese Delegation; Permanent Chinese Representative at the United Nations.↩
  6. Selim Sarper, Chairman of the Turkish Delegation; Permanent Turkish Representative at the United Nations.↩