IO files, US/A/M (SR)/7
Minutes of Seventh Meeting of the United States Delegation to the Ninth Regular Session of the General Assembly, New York, October 1, 1954, 9:45 a.m.1
Mr. Taylor opened the meeting by announcing that the General Committee would meet next week in order to consider the Soviet item which was introduced in yesterday’s general debate by Mr. Vyshinsky.
[Page 1031]Membership Question
Presenting this subject, Mr. Sisco said that at the last session of the General Assembly a Committee of Good Offices was established, which in the past year has attempted to find the answer to the membership problem. It has not been able to do so, and accordingly its report to the 9th General Assembly will be one of reporting failure.
In previous years, the Soviets have introduced a “package deal”. We have consistently opposed this plan, since it is our view that the five Soviet applicants are not peace-loving as defined in Article 4 of the Charter. Also, the Soviet “package deal” does not include five other states of the free world which have received seven votes in the Security Council and a 2/3 majority in the General Assembly, furthermore, such a proposal is contrary to the 1948 opinion of the ICJ which stated that each applicant should be considered separately. In the last session of the General Assembly this proposal never came to a vote since it was withdrawn by the Soviet Union because it did not have the required majority of the General Assembly.
This year’s membership item is in two parts: Part a. consists of the report of the Committee of Good Offices and Part b. is the Australian proposal to admit Laos and Cambodia. We have received indications that the UK and most of the Commonwealth nations will support a continuation of the Committee of Good Offices.
The United States position on the admission to membership of the 14 free nations is as follows: We will continue to support admission of the 14 and we will vote against the admission of the five Soviet sponsored nations. If it is proposed that a selected few states within the group of 14 be admitted the Delegation will, subject to instructions from the Department, ask for a separate vote on each of the applicants proposed and will vote for any of the non-Soviet applicants.
We are now directing our efforts toward the United States proposal for non-member participation, Mr. Sisco said. This is a new proposal. We would ask the General Assembly to set forth the arrangements for participation of 14 non-member states. Each of which would receive all UN documentation, be able to engage in debates and could even vote, although the vote would not be counted. We have already had exploratory discussions on this subject with other delegations although there have been no decisive reactions either way as yet.
The United Kingdom and some other delegations have raised some doubt as to the juridical basis of the US proposal and a legal memorandum has been prepared, which we will present to the UK Delegation. Other Delegations have asked what the attitude is of the non-member states themselves. They have been non-committal, Mr. Sisco said, with the exception of Korea, which is enthusiastic, and Japan, whose Prime Minister has accepted the US proposal in principle. We [Page 1032] have asked the Department to make contact with those non-member states which the Delegation cannot talk with in New York, since their acceptance of the proposal would facilitate its passage in the General Assembly. Another difficulty encountered is that some delegations have asked whether non-member participation might not be the end of the line for those nations concerned. Our response has been that non-member participation is an interim step towards full membership. Mr. Sisco outlined a telegram sent to the Department yesterday which coupled the non-member participation proposal with a resolution asking the General Assembly to declare that membership questions are not subject to veto in the Security Council and that the Charter should be revised to this effect. This morning a telegram was received from the Secretary approving this policy.
At this point, Mr. Sisco said, the Delegation can soon start expanding its efforts, and the Liaison Officers will be able to engage in further discussions with other delegations on the subject.
Ambassador Lodge observed that the Secretary of State, in his speech in the general debate, had stated that the greatest threat to the United Nations today is the limitation of its membership. This proposal, Ambassador Lodge said, is a far reaching and very important one and one which the United States has a fighting chance to put over. Mr. Bonsai asked whether he might not be supplied with a paper outlining the US proposal so that he might explain it more thoroughly to his liaison contacts, and Mr. Sisco replied that he could supply him with such a paper. Mr. Barco then reported that he had heard from Mr. Asha of Syria that Mr. Belaunde of Peru, Chairman of the Membership Committee, was considering a package proposal including 8 free nations and 4 Soviet-sponsored nations.
Senator Fulbright asked what limitations there would be to participation in this non-member program and Mr. Sisco replied that anyone who has received 7 votes in the Security Council and a ⅔ majority in the General Assembly would be qualified and observed that this is limited at present to the 14 nations previously described. The Delegation expressed approval of the coupling of the non-member participation idea with the possible revision of the Charter to eliminate the veto on membership questions and there was some discussion on the possibility of revising the veto situation now rather than waiting until the Charter Review Conference.
- Drafted on Oct. 22.↩