Office of the Historian

310.2/3–254

Memorandum by the United States Representative at the United Nations (Lodge) to the Secretary of State

confidential
[New York,] March 25, 1954.
  • Subject:
  • Attitude of Secretary-General Hammarskjold re Chinese Representation

During a translation in the Security Council meeting today, after the Secretary-General had given me a note on another subject, I raised with him the matter of Chinese Representation in his speech before the Pilgrim Society in London and in his most recent press conference. I told him that his arguments for giving Red China a seat in the UN could justify the inference that he was trying to twist the UN into something different from what it was originally intended to be. The UN, I said, was not created to be a band of international adventurers not bound together by a common love of peace. The San Francisco conference envisaged a moral sanction in the words “peace-loving” which are in the Charter. Were the conditions prevailing now prevalent then, the US would undoubtedly have opposed Soviet membership.

Hammarskjold flushed visibly at this and answered that this question was very fundamental, with which I agreed. He stated that the Chinese Communists must some day become members of the UN—take China’s seat. To that I asked how he would feel if the Chinese Communists were occupying Stockholm as they are now occupying Pyong Yang. Would he not see things in a different light? I added that he was bringing to his concept of the job of Secretary-General new elements [Page 720] on which we had strong feelings, which were in opposition to our point of view, and which involved a change in the spirit of the Charter which would not be ratified by the US Senate if it were submitted to that body.

I broke off the conversation at this point as the translation had ended and a new speaker took the floor. He returned to his seat around the Council table still rather red.

Later, I understand, he spoke to Wadsworth to indicate concern at What he considered was a misinterpretation by me of his intentions. He claims not to have advocated seating the Chinese Communists now, or in the foreseeable future, unless and until they have purged themselves of aggression. He also stressed to Jerry the differences between a “good-boys” club and a universal organization.