Editorial Note

The underlying issues of colonial policy with which the United States was confronted at the United Nations were many and complex and rarely arose in a generalized context in which a question of general policy was readily recognizable or applicable; further, these issues almost never impinged upon an immediate and vital interest of the United States. Necessarily then, the thrust of the documentation here has been selective and illustrative rather than comprehensive and inclusive. Within the overall purpose of showing how United States policymakers viewed the issues and what they regarded as the available [Page 1169] options, the documentation specifically centers on three main foci: Issues (1) raised for the most part on the initiative of other governments in diplomatic exchanges with the United States; (2) which loomed more prominently in United States consideration at a particular point in time of the on-going history of the issue; and (3) which came to focus in a particular organ or committee of the United Nations (the Trusteeship Council, the Ad Hoc Committee on Factors, the Committee on Information from Non-Self-Governing Territories, the Committee on Administrative Unions, Committee IV of the General Assembly, and the General Assembly itself). Such issues and United States policies relating thereto were definable in the limited format of an instruction to the United States Delegation concerned. Generally there is no account here of legislative proceedings at the United Nations, nor of the United States role therein, such information being already in the public domain.