Conference files, lot 59D95, CF96
United States Delegation Minutes of the Tripartite Foreign Ministers Meeting at the French Foreign Ministry, Paris, November 9, 1951, 11:30 a.m.1
Present: France:
Foreign Minister Schuman, Ambassadors Bonnet, Massigli and Chauvel, M. Maurice Schumann, M. Parodi, M. de la Tournelle, M. Lacoste, M. Broustra, M. Bourbon Busset, and M. Laloy
United Kingdom:
Foreign Secretary Eden, Mr. Lloyd, Mr. Dixon, Mr. Jebb, Mr. Shuckburgh, Mr. Bowker, Mr. Parrott and Ambassador Harvey
United States:
The Secretary, Ambassadors Bruce and Gifford, Assistant Secretary Perkins, Messrs. Raynor, Knight, Battle, and for a portion of the meeting Ambassador Gross, Mr. Byroade and Mr. Wainhouse.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Italian UN Membership
Foreign Minister Schuman said he thought it was essential that action on Italian membership be initiated in the SC. He said the Italian note3 had failed to convince him that the Assembly could act in the absence of SC action. He said, however, that he felt in the SC all that would happen would be another debate and another [Page 740] veto. He said we should consider what needs to be done if this course of events occurred. He said this would be very serious to Italy and that we also should not “bend to the Soviet veto”. He said he thought perhaps the SC could refer the question to the GA with a statement that it has been blocked from action. He thought then the GA could vote favoring Italy. He said the result of this, of course, would be only a moral one, but he thought even so it would help the Italian situation somewhat. He said that in the GA the Trusteeship argument could be used. He said we could argue that it was not in accord with the Constitution or with justice that a country worthy of being given a Trusteeship by the UN should be excluded from membership in the UN. No decision was taken on the matter of GA tactics in the event of another SC veto.
Mr. Acheson said that he wanted to suggest that the Trusteeship Council recommend to the GA that because of the difficulty Italy has in administering a UN Trusteeship without being a Member, something should be done about this situation. Schuman replied that this in effect had been done and was covered by Item 56 of the agenda. Mr. Acheson said that he had not completed his suggestion. He wished to propose that this agenda item be considered in the Fourth Committee and that the Fourth Committee and the Assembly pass a Resolution calling upon the SC to reexamine the Italian application as a special case in view of the Trusteeship question.
M. Schuman [ Schumann ] said he thought this was a good proposal and that Item 56 should be referred to the Fourth Committee rather than the First. He said that if we agreed in principle on this proposal, our experts could work out the details.
Although Mr. Eden did not speak, there appeared to be general agreement, and Mr. Acheson said that Congressman Mansfield, of our Delegation, would be in touch with the other two Delegations to work this out.
- During the Sixth Session of the U.N. General Assembly which met in Paris in early November and the Eighth Session of the North Atlantic Council which met in Rome November 25–28, the Foreign Ministers of the United States, the United Kingdom, and France took the opportunity to hold a series of conferences to discuss mutual problems. The only major discussion of Italy concerned the question of U.N. membership and occurred at the second meeting of the three Foreign Ministers, which is documented here. Regarding the Paris and Rome Foreign Ministers meetings, see the editorial note, vol. iii, Part 1, p. 1312.↩
- The omitted sections deal with topics unrelated to Italy, such as the pending NAC meeting in Rome, the Far East situation, and Germany.↩
- The Italian note under reference is the draft reply which Italy was then preparing as a response to the tripartite declaration of September 26. The formal Italian response, which was issued on December 8, is printed in Department of State Bulletin, December 24, 1951, p. 1011.↩