IO Files, US/A/M(Chr)254
Minutes of Seventeenth Meeting of the United States Delegation to the General Assembly, New York, December 8, 1952
[Here follows list of persons present (42). All representatives on the Delegation were present (Austin, Mrs. Roosevelt, Senator Wiley, Gross, Jessup, Cohen, Sprague, Mrs. Sampson, and Lubin). Ambassador Austin presided.]
Ambassador Austin asked to say a word before considering the business of the Delegation. He noted that the Secretary had found it inconvenient to see all the members of the Delegation and talk with them about the experiences of this Assembly. The Secretary also would have liked to thank the Delegation for its collaboration with him. It therefore fell to Ambassador Austin to thank the Delegation on behalf of the Secretary. Ambassador Austin spoke of his own personal devotion to the Secretary. During his years of experience as Chief of the United States Mission, Ambassador Austin could truthfully say that as far as relations with the Department of State were concerned no force had ever been imposed on the Mission in its operations. There had always been a careful consideration of the views of each, even when these views conflicted. The Mission and the Department never “got into a miff” over such differences. In such a case, review by the Department and the Mission of their differences had always brought about agreement—with an understanding heart. Ambassador Austin said that he would like to have the records preserve this glorious memory forever. He spoke of the new experiment in the conduct of America’s foreign relations by the establishment of a Mission to the United Nations and of the great importance of its task of furthering world peace. He was gratified to commemorate the great service of Dean Acheson as a great Secretary of State.
Ambassador Austin then called on Mr. Taylor who noted that the Ad Hoc Political Committee would be holding an evening session that day in addition to a morning one, at which time it was expected that [Page 893] the membership item would arise. Senator Wiley would be handling this item for the United States Delegation.
I. Membership Question (US/A/AC.61/8).
Mr. Meeker began the presentation of this item by recalling that the Assembly had admitted no new Members in over two years. Indonesia’s admission in 1950 was the last one. Hence, at the present there were nineteen pending applications. Five of these were Soviet-sponsored candidates, all of whose conduct in the opinion of the United States fell far short of the accepted standards of international behavior. Of the fourteen remaining applicants, nine had been pending for a long while, some as much as six years. Ten of the fourteen had been endorsed by the Assembly as qualified for admission. In 1952 the other four had made application. These were Japan and the three associated states of Indo-China. The Assembly had not up to that time taken any action with regard to these four. The Security Council had, during the late summer of 1952, considered these new applications, but in separate votes their admission had been vetoed by the Soviet Union.
Beyond endorsing the ten States, the General Assembly had attempted certain other steps. It had asked the International Court of Justice for two advisory opinions. In the first of these, the question had been whether the affirmative vote of a member of the Security Council could be conditioned upon considerations other than those set forth in Article 4 of the Charter. The answer to this had been in the negative. The second question put to the International Court had been whether a favorable recommendation of the Security Council was necessary before the Assembly could act to admit new members. The answer to this had been in the affirmative.
The Assembly had also passed a resolution concerning the veto which had asked the Security Council members, and especially the permanent members, to discuss the veto and attempt to restrict its use. The Interim Committee had drawn up a list of cases in which it was recommended that the veto not be used. One of these was the question of membership. The Assembly had appealed to the Security Council to reconsider pending applications. Finally, during the Sixth Session the Assembly had asked the permanent members of the Security Council to consult on this matter. No positive results had been achieved from any of these various steps.
The item on membership was again before the Assembly. Mr. Meeker indicated that various types of proposals had been made in the past and could be expected again. The first of these was the Belaunde plan. By this plan the Assembly would consider that the Security Council had in fact made recommendations concerning certain applicants, although vetoes had been cast against separate resolutions concerning these applications. The plan noted that these applicants had been included in the package proposal of the Soviet Union and had received [Page 894] the affirmative vote of the Soviet Union in that context. These same applicants had also received at least seven other affirmative votes in other resolutions. Therefore, this plan would have the Assembly declare that the Security Council had made favorable recommendations concerning these applicants and would admit them to membership.
The second type of proposal would be a resolution stating that the veto was inapplicable to the question of membership and that wherever seven votes had been obtained in favor of a candidate he would be admitted by the General Assembly.
A third type of proposal would be to go again to the International Court of Justice for an advisory opinion on the question of whether the veto applied to the present situation in the Council.
It was expected that the U.S.S.R. would again put forward a proposal for the admission en bloc of fourteen of the present applicants, excluding only Japan, the Republic of Korea, and the three Associated States. A similar proposal at the last session of the Assembly had obtained a simple majority vote in Committee. It had failed of adoption in the Plenary only because that body had decided that a two-thirds majority was necessary.
Various schemes for some type of associate membership had been put forward in the past. Interest in such an idea had dwindled, however, and no one was pressing for this at the moment.
Since it appeared that the Assembly might adopt one of the less desirable plans outlined above, such as the Belaunde plan or the Soviet package deal, the Delegation working group recommended that it would be wise to put this matter over for another year by the device of referring it to a study group. The Department had approved this recommendation and had asked that consultation be undertaken. It had become apparent that there would be fairly wide acceptance of such a scheme, although enthusiasm for it was lacking. Five Central American States had agreed to sponsor this idea.
Mr. Meeker reported that one problem remained: What should the General Assembly do, if anything, with regard to endorsing the four new applications on which no action had been taken? A separate resolution endorsing these applications could be submitted. Alternatively, if the resolution proposing a study group was to be the single action taken by the Assembly on this question, resolutions concerning the four new applicants could be sent to the study group. Finally, endorsement of these applications might be included in the study group resolution itself.
In concluding his presentation on this matter, Mr. Meeker mentioned the past policy of the Department in this field. It had long opposed the use of the veto regarding membership applications and even before the Vandenberg resolution this policy had been stated. The concept of universality was favored as soon as States were capable [Page 895] of the responsibilities of membership. The argument had been put forward that universality should be the immediate goal regardless of the capabilities of individual applicants in view of the facts that the Soviets were already Members of the Organization and the Mongolian People’s Republic was as much of a state as the Ukraine or Byelorussia. Bringing these questionable applicants in might even operate to improve them. The Department, however, had been opposed to admitting all nineteen present applicants, having felt that it would not be acceptable to the American public.
Senator Wiley said that he had little to add to Mr. Meeker’s presentation. He thought it was wise to have this matter in effect postponed by the device of a study group so that the new administration could bear the responsibility for considering whether the UN should have a few more “rotten apples” or whether they should be kept out. He understood the burden of the arguments for admitting such States, but pointed out that the seven-year history of the UN indicated little prospects of success for such a course. He referred to a conversation he had had with a man who had just returned from Korea. This individual felt that Korea was merely one point on the perimeter of Communism’s war upon the rest of the world and merely part of its scheme to conquer the world.
Senator Wiley said that he recognized that his arguments might sound to some as anti-UN sentiment. However, he was in favor of the UN and felt that it should be operated on a sound basis. He did not want to see more Vishinskys and satellites brought in. As Secretary General Lie had said, the support of United States public opinion was necessary for the success of the United Nations and some things had to be done to obtain that support. If five or six more followers of the Communist line were admitted, he wondered what would happen to public opinion in the United States. He also cautioned that it would be even more difficult for the Congress to vote money for the United Nations in such an event.
Senator Wiley was happy to follow through upon the recommendation of the staff for a study group. He apologized for expressing himself so strongly, but explained that “living in the grass roots” caused him to feel sincerely and deeply on this matter.
Ambassador Austin judged that the Delegation favored the contents of the draft resolution under discussion which called for a study group. He asked if anyone cared to speak against it. Ambassador Gross said that he was not necessarily against the resolution, but inquired into the reasoning which created a study group of the Assembly and not of the Security Council. Ambassador Austin answered that this was now a General Assembly problem and that a study group composed of those Members indicated in the draft resolution could do no harm. Mrs. Roosevelt suggested that the Central Americans who were putting [Page 896] forward this draft resolution might feel that such a committee was less tied to the stresses and strains of the Security Council.
Mr. Sanders pointed out that this proposal was intended as a means of dealing with the political realities of this Assembly, and that there was a real threat that “gimmicks” such as the Belaunde plan might be adopted. Furthermore, some States not on the Security Council had shown a keen interest in the whole problem of membership and could not be kept off the study group. However, the composition was such, he felt, that the study group as a whole would look at the problem objectively.
Mr. Ross thought that the question of whether or not the idea of the group was acceptable would depend entirely on its composition. He personally had serious doubts that some of the members would be objective.
Ambassador Cohen agreed with the need for examining the composition of the study group. He saw a psychological advantage in establishing this as a General Assembly committee since the Assembly was in a sense engaged in a struggle with the Security Council. In that struggle, despite our membership on the Council, the hopes of the United States rested with the Assembly. He agreed that the new administration should have a chance to consider this problem. He hoped it would be borne in mind that there were more applicants for membership who were on our side than those against us. He also mentioned that it was quite a wound in the minds of our friends who had been unsuccessful in their applications to see the Soviets apparently willing to connive to admit new members while the United States was not so willing. It might one day even be to the advantage of the United States to have the Soviet-sponsored candidates in the Organization. He recalled that the Yugoslavs in the early days had been most slavish to the Soviets and yet had broken away. He felt that the fact that the Yugoslavs were Members of the United Nations might well have assisted them in reaching the decision to break away. He did not want to provoke a discussion of these matters, but merely to raise questions for further consideration.
On the question of the composition of the study group, Mr. Meeker recalled the veto study carried on by the Interim Committee. He suggested that a group from the Assembly outside the membership of the Security Council—where political considerations were all important and where there had been a failure to make any progress—was the best means of studying this problem. He also noted the need for obtaining wide support for this resolution. The potential attitudes of the members of this group had been fully discussed with the liaison officers of the Delegation and with the Department. It was felt that no more than three of the thirteen study group members would favor the Soviet package proposal. From the point of view of the ultimate results of [Page 897] the study group and of wide support for creating the group, the composition was satisfactory.
Ambassador Austin noted that the five permanent members of the Security Council were to be represented on this group. Mr. Meeker said that this had been intentional and was of some significance.
In view of the discussion, Ambassador Austin suggested that no decision be taken at that meeting. Ambassador Gross indicated that he had not meant to delay a decision of the Delegation on this matter and was in fact satisfied with the clarifications he had heard.
Mr. Wilcox spoke about the “rotten apple” theory. He was personally in favor of the concept of universality, but realized that it would be wiser to postpone a decision of the Assembly on this matter for another year. He pointed to the Yugoslav example cited by Ambassador Cohen and said that it would appear that when “rotten apples” were put into the UN they showed considerable improvement. He mentioned the fact that many neutral States had been encouraged to go along with the free world on many of the important decisions taken by the Assembly. Senator Wiley said this was a whole new concept of the results of placing rotten apples in a barrel.
Since there were no objections to the course recommended by the staff, Ambassador Austin declared that this would be the decision of the Delegation. He then adjourned the meeting.