310.2/7–3154
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Deputy under Secretary of State (Murphy)
- Participants:
- Sir Pierson Dixon, UK Representative at the United Nations
- Robert Murphy, Deputy Under Secretary of State
At dinner July 31 at the British Embassy, I had opportunity for a long conversation with Sir Pierson Dixon. I inquired what the British position is regarding the question of Red China’s admission to the United Nations, remembering that the British moratorium agreement expired December 31, 1953. Dixon said he had not yet received firm instructions but that he felt this question would be a most embarrassing one during the Ninth Session of the General Assembly. He said his personal opinion is that Red China should be admitted. He referred to his participation at San Francisco in 1945, recalling that the British position then was in favor of minimizing Chinese participation, for example, as a permanent member of the Security Council, whereas the United States then seemed to be very eager to build up Chinese participation on a Great Power basis. He referred to the development of events since that time intimating that British prescience in Far Eastern matters has proven more acute than ours. His thinking seems to be along the lines that Red China qualifies for membership under the Charter, but he gagged a little on my question whether Red China could so promptly after Korea qualify under Article 4 as a peace-loving state, able and willing to carry out the obligations of the Charter. He asserted that unless the United Nations is to be universal, as it was originally intended, it may defeat its own purposes.
Dixon also expressed concern at our alleged tendency to use the United Nations as a vehicle in our campaign against communism. I thought at first that he was referring to Cabot Lodge’s desire to have the subject of “Communism, the new Colonialism” included in the agenda for the Ninth Session of the General Assembly, but Dixon indicated that that was not specifically in his mind; rather our conduct in the United Nations during the past year when we sought out every occasion to use the machinery of the United Nations in an anti-communist campaign. I told him that I hesitated to use the word naive, but that under all the circumstances which he knew as well as all of us, that sort of attitude at least seemed innocent. Dixon referred to the heavy pressure that HMG would be under in connection with this issue and also to considerable sentiment on the part of other delegations in favor of the admission of Red China. He said that he was aware of the strong and emotional sentiment prevailing in this country [Page 751] on this question and I said that he should be under no illusions regarding the especially strong opposition to it which prevailed in the United States Congress. He said that while he had not been in this country for long, he began to realize how determined this opposition seems to be.
[Here follows discussion of other matters.]