350/2–1951

Memorandum of Telephone Conversation, by Mr. Joseph N. Greene, Jr., of the Office of Western European Affairs

confidential

Subject: Italian Role in Trusteeship Council

Participants: Mr. Catalano, Second Secretary of Italian Embassy
Mr. Greene, WE

Mr. Catalano called to ask whether we had heard anything from our Embassy at Rome in response to the instructions we had sent them on the Italian desire to obtain a vote in the Trusteeship Council. Apparently Mascia in New York had learned that such instructions had been sent and I confirmed that they had along the lines of our earlier discussions here.

Mr. Catalano said that the Italian Foreign Office has instructed Mascia to press the question or at least to keep it open, and has instructed the Embassy here to solicit the Department’s support. Accordingly, Mr. Catalano thought he might come down to make formal representations seeking our support of Mascia’s idea that the Trusteeship Council establish a sub-committee to study the question. Mr. Catalano said that he was aware of our opposition to this course; in response to his question, I said that that was our final position. I referred to our views on the timeliness of raising either the membership or Charter amendment issues now; Mr. Catalano said he quite understood those views but that they did not seem to constitute an answer to the question of keeping open for further study. I acknowledged that that might be so and said that speaking entirely personally, because it was not a matter in which the Department can appropriately express official views, my own thought was that since we must assume a sub-committee report would be unfavorable to the Italian thesis, it would be more of a jolt to Italian public opinion in the long run to focus the issue on such a report than quietly to let the matter drop now. Mr. Catalano said he understood the pertinance of this point and that I was expressing it completely personally. He indicated that he would not pursue the matter officially, and we agreed to keep in touch on current developments on this matter.