330/7–650: Telegram
The United States Representative at the United Nations (Austin) to the Secretary of State
priority
[Received July 7—12:39 a. m.]
28. Reports from USUN re Korea: The following telegram reports conversations by USUN officers with other delegations July 6:
Views of SC members:
Bebler (Yugoslavia) told Sunde (Norway) that Yugoslavia would “make no difficulty” at SC meeting July 7, Sunde informed Gross. From Bebler’s comments, Sunde believed Yugoslavia was “coming around”.
Sunde also said he had talked separately with Bebler and Rau (India), who reportedly agreed that it would “not be opportune” to raise issue of Chinese representation during Korean crisis, Sunde apparently had given them substance of Gross’ comments to him along lines of Deptel 9 of July 31 without attributing source of these comments.
In separate telephone conversations, Ross gave substance of six numbered points of pending draft SC resolution on Korea to Rau, Fawzi (Egypt) and Tsiang (China). Rau expressed thanks but made no comments. Tsiang offered no comment but in response to request for observations, Tsiang thought a resolution along lines indicated “seemed like a reasonable proposition”.
Fawzi said he did not think the US could appropriately sponsor such a resolution, nor would he like China to do so. Upon Ross’ inquiry, Fawzi suggested Norway as sponsor would be fine but that other possibilities should be considered in case Norway could not do so. UK and France would be all right, Fawzi agreed.
Asked if he cared to make comment either of personal nature or on behalf of his government, Fawzi said he thought Egypt’s position would be “in line with what has taken place”. He thought he detected some “straightening out of the line”. He was not discouraged and was “not giving up”.
Fawzi added opinion that the less discussion on resolution at SC meeting the better. He said he had been urging upon himself and others the view that legalistic points should not be subjected to a magnifying glass, and that after all we were trying to do a job in spirit of charter.
[Page 323]Latin-American caucus:
The LA caucus July 6 discussed Korean problem particularly with reference to coordination of offers of aid, Muniz (Brazil) indicated to Noyes. Muniz had argued strongly against Latin Americans attempting to make concrete offers of supplies now. He thought all offers might not be accepted and refusal of coffee, rice, et cetera would have bad effect on people involved. He believed it wiser to await information from combined command. He said Alvarez (Cuba) reported that Austin thought this course was wisest and that seemed to be consensus of meeting.
A LA source reported to Corrigan that results of LA caucus were: 1) Unanimous decision to support US action in SC July 7; 2) agreed Korean question should not be referred to IC; 3) decided to give further study to Lie’s message re contributions to UN effort in Korea. General atmosphere of meeting was reportedly harmonious and optimistic.
Other members’ comments:
In conversation with J. Hyde, Carter (Canada) said his Ambassador had underlined great importance to Canada of having it clear that this was UN operation. He commented on two points of US draft: 1) Matter of UN flag, which he understood leaves a measure of discretion to unified command; and 2) reports from US to SC on actions of unified command. On latter point, he indicated Canada might prefer unified commander be requested to make reports to SC but he realized there were reasons why US chain of command must be respected. Carter seemed quite content that resolution contained no reference to SC committee.
Von Balluseck (Netherlands) expressed concern to Hyde about press reports indicating strong difference between British and French as to kind of administrative machinery for handling armed forces under MacArthur’s command. He said the Netherlands, having recognized Communist China, wanted to be certain that its offer of a destroyer if accepted did not lead it into conflict with Communist China. When shown copy of draft resolution which represented joint thinking, Von Balluseck felt it met his problem. He added that UK, which also had recognized Chinese Communists, would be thinking of same problem as Netherlands.
Kyrou (Greece) called at his request on Austin to describe talk he had just had with the Jam Sahab of Nawangar, whom he considered to have considerable influence in Indian Government affairs. Jam Sahab apparently reported that if the resolution providing for unified command under MacArthur restricted the commander’s activity [Page 324] to area of Korea, he felt confident India would send forces. If however, there was no such limitation and possibility existed of fighting spreading to Formosa, Indo-China or elsewhere in Asia, he was equally sure India would not contribute forces. When Austin read pertinent passages from working paper on Korea, Kyrou agreed this draft limited action to Korea as much as could be reasonably expected.