Office of the Historian

Conference files, lot 60 D 627, CF 246: Telegram

The United States Delegation to the Department of State

confidential
Geneva, May 25, 1954.

Dulte 112. Eden has just informed me officially that although the British Government has serious misgivings about the timing of the Thai appeal to the UN, they will nevertheless go along with us if we decide that it must be done at this time. Eden gave me a memorandum of the following questions for consideration. I answered most of these informally and apparently to his general satisfaction in accordance with previous correspondence with the Department, but we agreed that Dixon, Lodge and the French representative should get together in New York and arrive at a coordinated position with respect to the considerations raised in the British memorandum.

1.
I told him that our thought was that the appeal should go to the Security Council and then to the Interim Committee but I did not think we would have any objection were it to go direct to a special [Page 929] session of the General Assembly, although I thought the French might object.
2.

(a) I had no ideas with regard to the problem of Chinese representation.

(b) We felt that the appeal should be direct from Thailand to the United Nations and that the Associated States should not be brought into the picture until later.

3.

(a) Draft resolution was being worked out by Thailand. Subsequently, subcommission would visit the other areas which might invite them.

(b) Lodge, Pearson and associates could work out the proposed composition of the subcommittee. That proposed in the British memorandum was not far away from our own ideas.

4.
Could not answer it here.
5.
It would probably be difficult to control debates in the General Assembly and the French are worried about various issues of colonialism being dragged in, particularly Morocco and Tunisia.
6.
We believe the effect would be good here, providing the appeal was divorced entirely from the Geneva Conference and was direct from Thailand to the United Nations.
7.
The Peace Observation Commission is probably our best chance of getting anything like genuinely neutral supervision later in the Associated States.
8.
We believe that Thai appeal to UN should proceed as rapidly as possible and be completely divorced from the Geneva Conference at this time.

Following is text of British memorandum:

“Questions for consideration with respect to the proposed appeal by Thailand to the United Nations.

1.
Should the appeal go direct to a special session of the General Assembly or should it go first to the Security Council and then to the General Assembly in accordance with the United Action for Peace procedure?
2.

(a) How should the problem of Chinese representation bo handled?

(b) What, if any, governments or authorities would be invited to participate in the debates in the Security Council and the General Assembly? Possible claims to appear by Laos, Cambodia, Viet-Nam and Viet-Minh, should be considered.

3.

(a) What should be the exact terms of the draft resolution? For example, consideration should be given to phrase “the general area of Thailand”? What areas should the sub-commission visit?

(b) Would the proposed composition of the sub-commission—India, New Zealand, Pakistan, Sweden and Uruguay—be satisfactory or feasible? If not, what should be its composition?

4.
What votes in support of the draft resolution would there be in the Security Council and the General Assembly? Would there be a sufficient majority in the latter?
5.
Would it be possible to control the debates especially in the General Assembly?
6.
What would be the effect of the debates on the position in Indo-China and on the Geneva Conference?
7.
What would be the relations between the functions of the subcommission and any agreement on Indo-China that may emerge from the Geneva Conference?
8.
What would be the timing of proceedings in the United Nations, especially in relation to the Geneva Conference?”

Smith