Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952–1954, Africa and South Asia, Volume XI, Part 1

772.00/11–952

Memorandum of Conversation, by the Secretary of State¹

top secret

[New York,] November 9, 1952.

Participants:

• United Kingdom
• Mr. Eden
• Mr. Selwyn Lloyd
• Sir Gladwyn Jebb
• Mr. Schuckburgh
• Mr. Johnson
• United States
• The Secretary
• Ambassador Jessup
• Ambassador Gross
• France
• Mr. Schuman
• Mr. Hoppenot
• Mr. Lacoste

At luncheon, at Sir Gladwyn Jebb’s, before the arrival of Mr. Schuman, I summarized to Mr. Eden the conversation which Mr. Schuman and I had had yesterday.² In the course of the ensuing discussion, Mr. Eden concluded that it would be very undesirable for Mr. Schuman to announce in his speech at the General Debate tomorrow that France would not participate in the debates in Committee I. Sir Gladwyn Jebb thought that France would be wiser to at least occupy the French seat in the Committee, but Mr. Eden did not commit himself on this point.

When Mr. Schuman arrived, accompanied by Mr. Hoppenot and Mr. Lacoste, the three Ministers withdrew and conversed privately.

Supported by Mr. Eden, I suggested to Mr. Schuman the advisability that he should not in his statement on Monday declare that France would not participate in the Committee I debates. Mr. Schuman agreed with this view and said that he would leave the matter in doubt. However, he indicated that his speech tomorrow would make it very clear that France cannot accept any UN interference in North Africa and that France would not enter into any discussion either of the principle or the “modalities” of such interference.

In regard to the French Government’s decision that they would not sit in the First Committee when these items are discussed, I said that I understood the French primary concern with the reaction in North Africa. I understood that they hoped the Tunisians and Moroccans would realize that they had nothing to expect from the UN. Stressing the fact that I was not arguing with Mr. Schuman on this point, I merely wished to ask whether Mr. Schuman had considered the following point: Namely, that the reaction in North Africa might be affected more by the opinions developed in the United States and other countries than by the simple act of France’s refusing to attend the Committee. In other words, the reaction in North Africa might be a reflex of public opinion reactions in the United States and other countries rather than a direct reaction to the French attitude. I wondered if Mr. Schuman had considered the likelihood that the French position of refusing to attend would not be appealing to public opinion in other countries. It might be interpreted as weakness and it might be said that the French did not dare appear to support their position by argument or that they did not have enough friends to do so. At first Mr. Schuman misunderstood my point and reiterated their primary concern with North African opinion. But when I had repeated my point and again said that I was not attempting to advise the French Government, but merely wished to inquire whether they had thought about these points, Mr. Schuman admitted that they had not thought about them.

Mr. Eden suggested that, if Mr. Schuman felt that some time or other he had to make it clear that the French were not going to participate in Committee I debate—other than by not showing up—he might do that at the end rather than at the beginning of the general debate. Particularly, if the Arabs or other countries behaved very badly, he might then say that it was perfectly clear that there was no sense in the debate and the French were not going on with the debate in Committee I. Eden thought this would be a better course than taking a position at the outset before anyone had said anything. This was particularly so because so far the Arabs have been very moderate. Mr. Schuman first said that he would consider this but later said that he would not make any statement about non-participation on Monday, but on Thursday or Friday, or whenever the end of the debate came, in light of the debate. Mr. Schuman said he thought it was more important to have a doubt about his intervening, and he did not exclude the possibility of a second intervention in the plenary.

I then said that I hoped Mr. Schuman had not gotten any wrong impression from our talk yesterday, as to the position of the United States in this matter. So far as the United States was concerned—Mr. Eden would speak for the British—we could not be substituted for France. We could be friends of France, but we could not act for them; we could not be the lawyers for them; we could not make the arguments which France would have made if they were there. Therefore, we would have to do the best we could with the situation which the French position presented, and not pretend that we were France. Mr. Eden agreed.

Mr. Schuman said he quite understood that we could not identify ourselves with France, and he would not ask the friends of France to so identify themselves and take the position which France was vacating.

Mr. Eden then said that he was leaving New York next Friday and this matter would not arise in Committee I until the following week. If it would be useful for Mr. Schuman, Mr. Eden would return from Ottawa and spend two or three days the week beginning November 17. Mr. Schuman said that would not be necessary because he was leaving New York this coming Saturday and would have to be in the Chamber on Monday, the 17th. I said that I would be in Washington when General Eisenhower was meeting with the President and that I would leave New York not later than the 21st to go to Ottawa and that it was not my expectation to return to the General Assembly after visiting Ottawa. Mr. Eden and Mr. Schuman accepted that as natural and did not expect me to be in New York after the 21st. I also left the impression that it was doubtful that I would be in the chair for the American delegation during the debate, except possibly once. That did not seem to disturb Mr. Schuman.

Regarding the French attitude, Mr. Lacoste told Mr. Jessup that it was quite clear to him that neither Mr. Schuman nor the Government in Paris appreciated that Mr. Schuman was going to sit through the plenary in which he would listen to the same attacks and be exposed to exactly the same situation which he hoped to avoid in Committee I.

When the advisers had joined us, I asked Mr. Schuman to let us have as soon as possible a copy of the speech which he will make tomorrow, so that we would be in a position to prepare any suitable comment for reply to press inquiries about the US reaction to the speech. He agreed to let us have a copy tomorrow.³

1. No drafting officer is listed for this memorandum of conversation.
2. Memorandum of conversation of Nov. 8, supra.
3. An unofficial translation of an advance copy of Schuman’s speech is in the S/A–Jessup files, lot 53 D 65, “Tunisia”. Some excerpts are in the Department of State Bulletin, Nov. 24, 1952, pp. 839–840.