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

UNP Files, Lot 59 D 237, “Membership General IV (Beg. 1951)”

Memorandum by Mr. James N. Hyde, Adviser, United States Delegation to the General Assembly

secret

[Paris, December 20, 1951.]

Italian Membership

possible courses of action in preparation for december 21 meeting with italians

The Italian observers have asked Thompson, Sale and Hyde for a frank exploratory discussion of possibilities on the basis of the facts as they now exist concerning Italy’s membership application. As Guidotti put it, we must decide whether to agree or disagree.

The tripartite declaration is a commitment by the US, UK and France to make every effort to secure Italy’s membership in the UN. This declaration was formulated after the Italian aide-mémoire was presented to the Secretary of State at Ottawa. The basic premise of this aide-mémoire is that the US must have the political will to admit Italy and then it can find the necessary legal formula to carry out that will.

After conversations in New York, Washington and Paris, there was agreement in writing between the three parties on the one hand and Italy (Delga 239, Nov. 17) that we should take Italy’s application to the SC, and Italy recommended this course to us, it being understood that a Soviet veto would not commit us to the position that a foundation had been laid for action by either the Assembly or the Council which we ourselves might consider in violation of the Charter. We agreed, however, to continue our discussions of any possible courses of action which we feel consistent with the Charter.

With French leadership, we took a resolution recommending Italian membership through the GA and into the SC. At the Dec. 19 meeting of the Council it became clear that the Soviet Union would veto the Italian application if considered alone. However, Malik put in a resolution recommending the admission of 13 applicants for membership, the 5 satellites, plus the 8 applicants whom we favor including Italy. However, he excluded one current applicant, the Republic of Korea. Also, on the day that the SC was considering this, Vietnam filed an application.

In the GA the First Committee will reach at some time, it being the next to the last item, the general membership question. There are several suggestions that will then come up with leadership from Peru, Argentina and Colombia. The general lines of the debate will probably be an attack on the veto and a recommendation to have the GA by a ⅔ vote admit Italy to membership on the theory that the Soviet Union’s 1949 veto, or its 1950 veto if we put it to a vote, are illegal. This might or might not involve the variant of requesting an opinion on this point from the International Court.

Within the past week the Italians asked us not to put their application to a vote in the SC. The resulting tactical situation would be that we will be faced with a GA move to vote Italy in or, as an alternative, that the SC consider the Soviet negative vote not a veto. The US would oppose both of these courses under our current instructions as threatening very seriously the existence of the veto.

In the light of the above facts, the following possibilities occur to me:

1. An arrangement for admitting some or all current applicants, or perhaps admitting future ones as well, by a blanket vote of the SC.

(a) As soon as the Dec. 19 SC meeting was over, Castro of Brazil and Guidotti suggested that the Soviet resolution might pass with a US abstention and the GA would then admit such applicants as it wanted. This would not involve any agreement by the US to vote for the satellite either in the Assembly or the SC. By putting in this resolution the USSR has committed itself and cannot seek commitments on the side, because its resolution must be put to the vote.

(b) Another possibility would be to amend the Soviet resolution or attempt to get them to agree to amend it to include all applicants plus Libya, Spain, Japan, the Associated States and Germany, letting the GA screen the applications.

The US has uniformly indicated that it will not agree to a deal involving the admission of satellites in return for the admission of Italy (Control 2468, Dec. 15).¹ While it could be argued that there is in no sense agreement between the US and USSR if we were to abstain on the Soviet resolution, yet we would at least be acquiescing in a tactic which is contrary to the principle which we have stated time and again that each application should be considered on its merits. The Soviet Union has twice tried exactly the same stunt and each time we have refused to agree to it. On June 21, 1949, Senator Austin rejected this idea, referring to its earlier rejection by Herschel Johnson² on September 25, 1947. Under the SC rules, if we did nothing the Soviet resolution could come to a vote without being divided into parts, because the sponsor can refuse to divide it. Thus, in the past we have made a procedural motion to vote on each application one at a time. If neither we nor anyone else made such a motion, then we would have to vote on the resolution as a whole. It may be an open question whether or not this suggestion involves a deal in the sense of an agreement with the Soviet Union or anyone else as to how we would conduct ourselves in the GA. However, when the Italians made a somewhat similar suggestion to Congressman Vorys on Nov. 15, 1951, that the SC might recommend every present and future applicant, Mr. Vorys commented that he did not see how we could possibly agree and it was hard for him to understand how Italy could want to enter the UN in the same category as “various gangster states”.

There is the serious political problem for us that the Soviet resolution presents in that it includes all present applicants except Vietnam and the Republic of Korea. On the eve of the consideration of the Korean case it would be a serious thing to leave the ROK in the cold. Furthermore, looking ahead to the problems of Japan and Germany, we would be in a very poor bargaining position with all the satellites in and more of our candidates knocking at the door.

We have argued so strongly as late as Dec. 19 that the 1948 opinion of the Court entitles each applicant to a separate hearing and pointing out the illegality of the Soviet approach, that if any member of the SC wanted to raise the question, he might claim that the Soviet resolution is out of order in that it is illegal and contrary to the Charter.

As far as attempting to change the Soviet resolution to include the Korean, or to include Korea plus the future applicants in whom we are interested, the likelihood of the USSR agreeing to this seems to me extremely slight. The question is whether there are any controlling reasons in the light of our commitment to Italy to approach the Soviet Union’s resolution differently from the way we have approached the identical problem in the past. In reaching a decision on this question, we must consider how we will handle a very strong movement in the GA to bring Italy in by Assembly action if the SC frustrates the will of 50-odd members of the Assembly.

2. GA Action: The Belaunde and Italian suggestions are based on the theory that the GA is the supreme organ of the UN and can characterize the negative vote of a permanent member of the SC as a veto or as an illegal negative vote. This is a very serious constitutional doctrine in that it would make it possible for the Assembly with or without the assistance of the Court to decide on the scope of the veto. The position of the State Dept. is that we should oppose them unless they have strong support of the majority of UN members, in which case, the Dept. wishes to be consulted further. Any decision that the Dept. takes on going along with action solely by the GA to admit a state to membership must necessarily be based on an analysis of how important the US regards the veto from the point of view of its security.

3. There are at least two ways that occur to me by which we can avoid the dilemma of having to oppose the Latin American and Italian theories in the Assembly, which would put us in the position of opposing Italy, and the dilemma of having to oppose an attempt in the SC to have a majority vote to determine that the negative vote of a permanent member is not a veto.

The first method is by recourse to the ICJ. Without analyzing in detail what that would involve and the chances of success, it is clear that the Court has never passed on the question of when a negative vote is and when it is not a veto, and that question was left open in the 1950 opinion. Assuming there is strong sentiment in the GA for the Belaunde theory, or in the SC for having a majority decide that a Soviet negative vote is illegal, it would clearly be better to try first of all to get the opinion of the Court in support of our position. Then, although we would be admitting members without the affirmative vote of the USSR in the SC, we would have the support not only of the Assembly but also of the Court.

The State Dept. would be willing to adopt this course, if we are faced with it (Gadel 474, Dec. 15).³ This would involve a request for an advisory opinion, preferably by the GA, the President of the SC making no ruling on the question of whether the vote on the Italian application does or does not constitute a recommendation. The present thinking of the Dept. is that an early vote in the SC and then a request for an opinion by the GA is the best hope for the admission of Italy to membership. Of course, this would be hope deferred, which Zafrullah Khan⁴ has characterized as making the heart sick, because an opinion would probably not be forthcoming in time for this session of the Assembly. We have drafted a form of question to be put to the ICJ, if this course is decided upon.

4. The idea of an observership or participation without vote has been put forward to the Italians upon various occasions and they have naturally rejected it, because presumably they would prefer a whole loaf to a half. It has certain clear advantages in that it would give them something now and in no way prejudice giving them more later, and would take the pressure off us to do something for Italy even at the expense of violating what we consider a correct interpretation of the Charter. It could be put forward as an important and attractive interim measure, not only applying to Italy but also to all other applicants, including the future ones in whom we are interested.

Specifically, the GA might have a two part resolution. The first would recommend the amending of the Charter and provide simply that membership in the UN shall be open to [peace loving]⁵ states upon the decision of the GA by a ⅔ vote. This part of the resolution would recite that this is a democratization of the Charter since the will of the UN has been frustrated by a number of Soviet vetos.

The second part of the resolution would point out that under Article 108 such an amendment of the Charter can come into force only when adopted by ⅔ of the members of the GA and ratified with the concurrence of the permanent members. Therefore, as an interim measure and so as no longer to delay the contributions of states whom the GA considers worthy of UN membership, the Assembly would provide in conjunction with a revision of its rules of procedure for interim or associate membership in the GA by all states upon a ⅔ vote of the Assembly and, perhaps, with a concurring vote of 7 or more members of the SC. Such participation might or might not be conditioned on a veto.

The question arises as to how broad this participation should be. The State Dept. has suggested the right of Italy to participate in main committees, presumably without vote. Of course, the vote in committee would be a very attractive thing from the Italian point of view, although it is clear that a vote in the plenary would not be possible. However, associate members would be entitled to speak in the general debate in the plenary, participate in the general discussion, propose resolutions and raise points of order.

In committees or other subsidiary bodies, the question would arise whether they should have exactly the same rights of members, including a vote and the right to be chairman of such committee and other subsidiary body.

As a separate resolution, the UN would then not invite but rather request Italy to come forward and make its contribution under such an organizational arrangement, and in private conversations we could point out both to the Italians and to others that our concept of this device is broader than the Italian case and foresees similar participation by other applicants who have been vetoed and those in whom we have a considerable interest, such as Germany and Japan.

The above plan is illustrative and not entirely in accordance with the current position paper. This paper indicates that the Dept. might support an arrangement for other qualified candidates if they are interested.

A variant of the above is the suggestion of amending Article 86 to give Italy membership in the Trusteeship Council.

As the position paper points out, representatives or observers participating without membership in the UN would not be entitled to full diplomatic privileges and immunities.

Given such full participation in the work of the GA, it seems only logical that a financial arrangement should be worked out whereby states so participating would contribute financially to the support of the organization. In this connection, it would probably be well for the Advisory Committee to suggest the amount which each participant electing to come into the UN should contribute.

J. N. Hyde

1. Refers presumably to Department telegram Gadel 473, December 15, p. 410.
2. The Deputy United States Representative on the Securtiy Council, in 1947.
3. Not printed.
4. Sir Mohammad Zafrulla Khan, Pakistani Minister of Foreign Affairs and Commonwealth Relations; Chairman, Pakistani Delegation to the Sixth Regular Session of the General Assembly.
5. Brackets in the source text.