Office of the Historian

Department of State Committee files, lot 54 D 5, “Working Group on Colonial Problems”

Memorandum by the United Nations Adviser, Bureau of Near Eastern, South Asian, and African Affairs (Howard)1

secret
[Washington, June 26, 1952.]

NEA agrees with UND that these problems are likely to become even more dominant at the Seventh General Assembly than in past sessions. Moreover, with the exception of the Pacific Trusteeships, NEA probably has a more direct interest in all questions of this sort than other Geographic Bureaus in the Department, since, as Sir Zafrulla Khan remarked during the Sixth Session: “It so happens that the dependent [Page 1127] areas and peoples are all of Asia and Africa; the dominant peoples are all European and American.”

Bearing these general considerations in mind, and aside from the items which UND itself may list, the specific problems in the NEA area which may arise at the Seventh Session, are the following:

1.
The Tunisian question
2.
The Moroccan question
3.
The South West African question

We should be prepared, as well, with regard to the following questions which may arise, whether at the Seventh or at some future session.

1.
The Cyprus question, of which note was made at the Sixth Session for the first time, although indirectly, by the Greek Delegation, and by a member of the Soviet bloc;
2.
Question of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan.

We are all aware, of course, of the insistence throughout the NEA area on the economic development of under-developed territories and, therefore, of the expressed desire for large-scale UN technical and economic assistance. These problems have a very decided bearing on questions of trusteeship and non-self-governing territories as well as upon the NEA area generally.

As of general interest I am also sending you a comment on the overall program for the Seventh Session.

  1. Circulated to the Working Group under cover of Doc. CP D–1/1, June 26, 1952 (the second of 4 attachments).↩