Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952–1954, Eastern Europe; Soviet Union; Eastern Mediterranean, Volume VIII

747C.00/12–1554: Telegram

No. 406
The Secretary of State to the Department of State¹

secret

Paris, December 15, 1954—10 p.m.

Secto 2. Greek Foreign Minister Stephanopoulos has just seen me in condition of great excitement. He would normally preside at NATO council but says Papagos has instructed him to proceed at once to New York to take charge of Cyprus matter for Greece. He hopes get some delay. He pleads with us at least in course of debate to give some indication that the New Zealand resolution² does not bury this matter for all time. I explained to him that it was perfectly clear from a legal standpoint that it did not bind a future Assembly and indeed that it did not bind this Assembly under the precedent set in the China case last year when Pearson ruled that a resolution could be considered even though it was totally inconsistent with a resolution previously adopted.³Stephanopoulos pleads with us at least to accept some alteration of the New Zealand resolution which would indicate that it applied only “to this session” or failing that to make some comparable statement in the course of debate. I doubt that we can do this without seeming to invite Greek action next year. However, I do feel that if there should be a discussion limited to the legal significance of the resolution and it was appropriate for us to express an opinion that aspect alone, we could indicate that as a juridical matter we did not feel that the agenda of a future Assembly can be limited by a prior Assembly. This should, however, be purely a legal statement and probably accompanied by a disclaimer of any desire to see this particular matter brought next year before the Assembly.

Dulles

1. Repeated to Athens and passed to USUN. Dulles was in Paris, Dec. 15–19, for preliminary talks and the Ministerial meeting of the North Atlantic Council, Dec. 17–18; for documentation, see vol. V, Part 1, pp. 549 ff.
2. New Zealand’s draft resolution “not to consider further” the Cyprus question was distributed as U.N. Doc. A/C.1/L.125. For the voting on it, see Document 410.
3. The ruling of Sept. 15, 1953, by Lester B. Pearson, Temporary President of the U.N. General Assembly, is printed in U.N. Doc. A/PV.432, paragraph 115.