L/UNA files, “Privileges & Immunities, General, 1944–1954”
Memorandum by the Director of the Office of Regional American Affairs (Cale) to the Director of the Office of International Administration and Conferences (Ingram)
- Subject:
- Use of Franking Privilege by Latin American Delegations to the UN.
Following receipt of your memorandum of July 21 concerning use of the franking privilege by Latin American delegations to the UN, we have very carefully reconsidered this matter and can come to no other conclusion but that it would be very undesirable to tell the Latin American delegations at the UN which are now reportedly using the franking privilege that they must discontinue its use.
We believe that such action would seriously affect cooperative working relations with the Latin American delegations on substantive matters at the forthcoming General Assembly and other UN meetings.
As you know we have also been apprehensive that if the Latin American delegations at the UN were denied the franking privilege, the next step might be to deny the privilege to delegations to the Organization of American States. Although the OAS privileges and immunities bill has now passed Congress we still feel that to deprive the Latin American delegations to the OAS of the franking privilege would have a serious effect on our relations with the other American Republics in the OAS. Because of lack of necessary legislation we were not able for many years to give the special ambassadors to the OAS appropriate privileges and immunities. If, now that the privileges bill has passed, we were to withdraw the franking privilege, they would have difficulty in escaping a feeling that we were intentionally trying to spite them. Incidentally, when ARA agreed to deferment of the question until after the 81st Congress it was specifically understood that ARA’s concurrence in such a deferment did not carry with it an implication that we would agree to withdrawal of the franking privilege if the privileges and immunities bill passed.
L/UNA’s memorandum of July 1 indicates that they “see no reason to change our position with respect to the question”. ARA believes that the foregoing considerations are sufficiently weighty to merit a reconsideration of the position. ARA recommends that the Legal Adviser’s [Page 224] office be asked to carefully re-examine the question with a view to determining whether it would not be possible to interpret the postal convention in such a way that the Latin American delegations to the UN would be regarded as entitled to use the franking privilege.
- Not found in Department of State files; presumably it incorporated the substance of the L/UNA memorandum of July 1, supra.↩