315.3/9–2552
The Secretary of State to Senator Alexander Wiley 1
My Dear Alex: I have your letter of September 25.2 As you observe, the United Nations alone is responsible for the selection of the personnel, of whatever nationality, that it employs. It was decided at the outset that this should be so. It was believed that, if individual staff members were to be beholden to their individual governments with respect to their service on the United Nations Secretariat, it would be impossible for the staff to effectively support the Secretary General in his capacity as the administrative representative of the member governments as a whole. This concept is embodied in specific provisions of the United Nations Charter itself.
It follows that United States nationals on the Secretariat do not represent the United States but are representatives of the United Nations insofar as their official capacity is concerned. The United States, as every other Member Government, is restrained from seeking to instruct the Secretary General and members of his staff, and these officials in turn are pledged not to seek or receive instructions from any government or external authority.
It is within the context of this sort of relationship between the United States Government and the United Nations that you ask if the Department has impressed upon the administrative officials of the United Nations our attitude toward the employment of Communists. I would like to assure you that we have taken utmost care to impress upon the administrative officials of the United Nations that the employment of United States nationals who are Communists is not in the best interests of the United Nations. Accordingly, we make known to the administrative officials of the United Nations such information as is at our disposal on American citizens whom we know to be employed and contemplated for employment by the United Nations. The use made by the Secretary General of such information as he secures from this Government is, of course, a matter for him to decide.
Inasmuch as Communist governments are members of the United Nations, there will inevitably be nationals of these governments, who are Communists, on the Secretariat. At the present time, nationals of Iron Curtain countries on the United Nations Secretariat in New York number less than one hundred persons, which is less than 4 per cent of the total staff. The Yugoslav members of the staff account for [Page 315] about ten positions in addition to those filled by nationals of Iron Curtain countries. We do not send to the United Nations any classified information. Accordingly, the Communist employees of the Secretariat do not have access to secret United States information.
The above figures of less than one hundred persons representing less than 4 per cent of the United Nations staff exaggerate the significance of Iron Curtain nationality representation on the Secretariat in New York. A considerable portion of these Iron Curtain nationals are citizens of Czechoslovakia and Poland who were engaged by the United Nations before their countries were taken over by the present Soviet puppet regimes, and remain loyal to a free Czechoslovakia and a free Poland.
I would like to repeat that the officials of the United Nations are fully aware that we do not regard the employment of United States citizens who are Communists as being in the best interests of the Organization or of this Government. I do not see how a person who owes allegiance to the Cominform and its leaders in Moscow can be expected to be a devoted employee of an international organization which is resisting Communist impelled aggression on the battlefields of Korea. I therefore feel that there is no occasion for the employment by the United Nations of persons loyal to the Cominform beyond those necessitated by the requirements of nationality distribution on the staff.
The United States Government has done and will continue to do everything possible, within the framework of the relations between a Member Government and the United Nations laid down by the Charter, in assisting officials of the United Nations to identify those persons who would appear to be unfit for duty with the United Nations.3
Sincerely yours,
- Drafted by the Director of the Office of International Administration and Conferences (Ingram). Cleared with the Legal Adviser (Fisher), the Assistant Secretary for UN Affairs (Hickerson), the Acting Assistant Secretary–Congressional Relations (Brown), and Everard K. Meade, Jr., Special Assistant to the Deputy Under Secretary–Administration (Humelsine).↩
- Not printed (315.3/9–2552).↩
- Notation at bottom of concluding page: “Original handed to Senator Wiley at his meeting w/the Sec’y at 10:45 a.m. 10/13/52 in New York.”↩