Foreign Relations of the United States, 1951, The United Nations; The Western Hemisphere, Volume II

310.2/11–851

Briefing Memorandum for Talks by the Secretary of State With the British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Eden), at Paris¹

Paris, undated

secret

Italian Membership in the United Nations

The Italians are most anxious to secure admission to the United Nations; de Gasperi has said that this is almost more important than the revision of the treaty. De Gasperi has expressed distress that we have been unable to agree to the Italian proposal for circumventing the veto and unable to propose any other course of action which might achieve success. The Italians have now proposed that the Security Council would pass all applications for membership to the Assembly, the Assembly being free to reject applications from the satellites while admitting Italy. The Italians have not proposed any way of getting Russian acceptance, which we consider most unlikely.

The Department has recommended that the United States Delegation should indicate continued United States support of the nine qualified applicants whose admission has been blocked by the Soviet veto, particularly Italy. The Department thinks that the Delegation should, if the Italian Government agrees and the United Kingdom and France concur, propose that the Assembly request the Security Council to reconsider Italy’s application as a special case. We understand that Schuman made a suggestion along these lines to the Secretary yesterday. As indicated above, we of course agree with this and would be inclined to favor consideration of this matter in the Trusteeship Committee, which will consider the question of Italy’s full participation in the work of the Trusteeship Council. If this course is not feasible, the Delegation might support special Security Council reconsideration of Italy’s application without prior General Assembly consideration. If the Security Council should go on to reconsider other applications, the Department recommends that the United States should support the admission of non-Cominform applicants and oppose admission of the Cominform applicants. As to the tricky plans of Italy and Peru, the Department recommends that we should point out the Charter difficulties involved in them. If these special efforts to get Italy into the United Nations are unsuccessful, the Delegation is authorized to support an amendment to Article 86 to give Italy full membership in the Trusteeship Council if it wishes; and should also consult with the Italians and others on the possibility of making special arrangements to give Italy the right to participate without vote in the main Assembly committees.

1. A series of bipartite (Acheson–Eden) and tripartite (Acheson–Eden–Schuman) meetings were held at Paris between November 4 and November 9. For documentation on these meetings, see volume iii.

   This document was one of several briefing memoranda on the Italian membership question that were drafted during this period. Although this memorandum is undated, there is a strong presumption that it was drafted for use at the November 4 meeting between Acheson and Eden. The Italian membership question was not discussed at this meeting, nor indeed at subsequent meetings until the second tripartite meeting on November 9.