795.00/12–1350
Memorandum of Conversation, by Mr. Ward P. Allen, Adviser to the United States Delegation to the United Nations General Assembly
US/A/C.1/2379
Subject: Korean Problem in Committee One
| Participants: | Mr. Kenneth Younger, United Kingdom Delegation |
| Lord MacDonald of Gwaenysgor, United Kingdom Delegation | |
| Mr. R. M. Hadow, United Kingdom Delegation | |
| Mr. Ward Allen, United States Delegation |
Mr. Younger, at lunch, took a very relaxed attitude towards Mr. Malik’s speech in Committee One this morning saying he was neither surprised nor disappointed. He was reluctant to accept the view I expressed that the speech indicated Soviet intention to keep the war going in Asia under any circumstance, but preferred to believe the Soviet purpose was rather to prevent any real rapprochement between the Chinese Communists and the West. We have, of course, he said, no way of knowing whether the speech reflected Chinese Communist thinking or not but in any event neither the USSR nor Communist China, even if they were prepared to have a Cease-fire would ever admit it openly in the Committee and embrace the Resolution and so Malik could hardly have been expected to make any different sort of speech than he did. It did not necessarily mean, therefore, that no Cease-fire would come about. Mr. Younger objected to the tendency both of the press and of various delegates to take a volatile mercurial attitude towards statements by Soviet delegates and attach undue significance to them.
As to immediate tactics in the Committee, Mr. Younger felt strongly that after the Cease-fire Resolution is passed the Committee should not proceed to take up Soviet charges of US aggression against China. Notwithstanding his awareness of the problem of US public opinion and my reiteration that the fact that we are defenders in this case made our position on postponement difficult, Mr. Younger felt that the time was out of joint for Committee One to consider this propaganda charge while negotiations on the Cease-fire were in progress. To permit Wu in the Committee to make a slanderous irrelevant speech prepared in Peiping three weeks ago and to promote a Soviet Bloc to play the same record over again could do no good and might upset the applecart at this time. The UK Delegation feels that the best procedure is for Committee One to adjourn sine die after passage of the [Page 1538] Cease-fire and for the plenary to approve some such resolution for recessing the General Assembly as the Secretariat has proposed. He thought some procedural provision or understanding could be included in the resolution to the effect that the remaining three items on Committee One’s Agenda (including Formosa) would also be postponed until after the current matter had been disposed of.
In this connection I mentioned the apparent intention of the Greek Delegation to introduce a motion, following approval of the Cease-fire resolution, to have the Committee decide the time of its next meeting and the order of the items. Mr. Younger was quite concerned and indicated it might be desirable for the UK to seek to dissuade Mr. Kyrou from this step (an idea which I did nothing to discourage).