Office of the Historian

350/2–1254

Memorandum of Conversation, by the Director of the Office of United Nations Political and Security Affairs (Wainhouse)

confidential
[Washington,] February 12, 1954.
  • Subject:
  • Mr. Sears Statement in the Trusteeship Council

Mr. van Laethem of the French Embassy came in to see me at his request yesterday. He started the conversation by saying that his people in Paris are working on various formulae to improve the relationship [Page 1356] between France and its colonial possessions in Africa. He dwelt at some length but most vaguely on various formulae which the French are developing on types of federation for the various possessions.

Upon completing this rather vague and disconcerted discussion, Mr. van Laethem then said that the Ambassador had asked him to see me to convey in a friendly way—this, he said, was not a démarche—the views of the Ambassador regarding the statement which the United States Representative made in the Trusteeship Council on Wednesday, the tenth, concerning the Cameroons. Mr. van Laethem said that the Ambassador felt that such statements do not contribute to good relations between our countries; they are unprofitable; they are gratuitously harmful and play into the hands of our enemies. Mr. van Laethem referred to the speeches made by the Secretary and Mr. Byroade on colonialism and said that in his view what Mr. Sears stated went beyond those two speeches. Mr. van Laethem also complained that the manner in which the British deal with their colonial possessions compared with the way in which the French deal with their colonial possessions was almost always to the disadvantage of the French. I said to Mr. van Laethem that this was a matter not within my area of responsibility and that I had not seen the text of what Mr. Sears said in the Trusteeship Council. At this point Mr. van Laethem opened the New York Times for February 11th and drew my attention to the article dealing with Mr. Sears’ statement. Mr. van Laethem also referred to the New York Herald–Tribune of February 11th which carried a brief account of the statement but was more harmful than the Times article in that the headline in that account referred to U.S. pressing for the independence of the Cameroons.1

I told Mr. van Laethem that I would call this matter to the attention of the appropriate officers in the Department.

David W. Wainhouse

  1. The New York Times account of Feb. 11, 1954 read:

    “United Nations, N.Y., Feb. 10—The United States politely cautioned France today not to allow the development of her Cameroons trust territory to fall behind the rate of progress in other parts of Africa.

    “Mason Sears, speaking for the United States in the Trusteeship Council, pointed to the signs of early nationhood for the Gold Coast and Nigeria and self-determination for British Togoland and the British Cameroons.

    “‘We cannot blind ourselves to the complications which could arise if self-government was being achieved by some peoples of West Africa while not yet being fully achieved by others,’ he said.

    “‘We believe that if such a situation is allowed to drift and becomes unduly prolonged it will create many difficulties and will ultimately provide fertile territory for alien controlled agitators, disguised as local patriots, to introduce Communist activity, which officially aims to take over every nationalist movement it can reach.’”

    (Source text from ODA files, lot 62 D 225, “U.S. Representative in Trusteeship Council”)

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