Office of the Historian

350/2–2652

Memorandum of Conversation, by the Assistant Secretary of State for United Nations Affairs (Hickerson)1

confidential
[Washington,] February 26, 1952.
  • Subject:
  • GA Resolution on Associating Inhabitants of Trust Territories with Work of the Trusteeship Council
  • Participants:
  • Mr. Gerald Meade, Counselor, British Embassy
  • Mr. Hickerson, UNA
  • Mr. Ward P. Allen, EUR

Mr. Meade referred to this resolution which the UK Delegation had opposed at the last General Assembly and which is to be considered by the forthcoming session of the Trusteeship Council, reiterating the UK view that as approved by the GA the resolution was an unfortunate one. Nevertheless, both the Colonial Office and Foreign Office realize that the Trusteeship Council should not send a report back to the next GA which would amount to an “undisguised rebuff”, since this would give rise to more extreme GA action. The UK was therefore hopeful that the administering authorities would be able to agree among themselves on some type of implementation of the resolution which would not prejudice their basic position and hoped the US [Page 1188] would agree to a resolution by the Trusteeship Council which would invite the administering authority, where possible, to include on their delegations to the Trusteeship Council persons from the trust territories themselves, by analogy to Rule 74 of Rules of Procedure of the Trusteeship Council.

Mr. Hickerson responded by reiterating our opposition to any concept of “associate membership” for the trust territories in the Trusteeship Council and stated that the UK suggestion was exactly the formula which we had had in mind in voting for the resolution and which, on February 25, had been suggested to and approved by M. Pignon, the French TC representative. It appeared therefore that the US, UK and France were in complete agreement on the implementation of the resolutions and we expressed confidence that our respective delegations to the Trusteeship Council in New York would be able to work out the solution along these lines.2

J[ohn] D. H[ickerson]
  1. Drafted by Ward P. Allen, UN Adviser, Bureau of European Affairs.↩
  2. Unpublished documentation on this matter is in file 700.021. For an account of what happened at the Tenth Session of the Trusteeship Council on this question, together with relevant citations to documents, see Department of State Position Paper, June 2, 1952, p. 1192.↩