215. Memorandum From Charles Allan Stewart, Adviser to the Mission at the United Nations, to Joseph J. Sisco of the International Organization Affairs Staff of the Mission1
SUBJECT
- Meeting of Supporters of Canadian Resolution on Membership
Following a telegraphic invitation to all 52 members which had voted for the Canadian resolution calling for the admittance of 18 countries to the UN, a meeting was held at 2:30 today in Conference Room 1. Three countries—Panama, Honduras and Nicaragua—were not present. Possibly others were not either.
Ambassador Martin opened the meeting by stating that the supporters of the Canadian resolution should guarantee any “doubting Thomases” that they would assure the entry of all 18 countries into the UN if they successfully passed the Security Council. Menon of India made a speech along the same line. Thereafter Ambassador Freitas Valle of Brazil arose and stated that he saw no reason for giving such a guarantee, since it was clearly evident that the 52 votes on the Canadian resolution guaranteed the entry of all the countries. Ambassador Arenales of Guatemala objected to the wording of the telegraphic invitation, which mentioned something about harmonizing views on the admittance of the new members. He said it would be difficult to harmonize the views, since the countries all had very divergent ideas on the various candidates.
Sir Percy Spender of Australia then stated that he was not entirely happy with the idea of being brought in to give guarantees for anybody. He said his country’s viewpoint had been clearly stated when the vote was held and he did not propose to be crossexamined about how he would vote. He then left the room, leaving a representative of his delegation as an observer.
Ambassador Urquia of El Salvador proposed that a resolution should be passed by the group, declaring that once the 18 countries had successfully been passed by the Security Council, the block of 52 countries which voted for the Canadian resolution would guarantee that all 18 countries would pass the Plenary. In view of the objection to the nature of the meeting as expressed by the Brazilian, Guatemalan and Australian, Ambassador Trujillo of Ecuador, who presided, did not put the motion to the vote. Trujillo closed the meeting by expressing the hope that those present would think the matter over during the night and attempt to come up with some [Page 447] solution which would assure the happy conclusion of the 18 nation package deal.
In short, no action was taken and the question of what will occur in the Security Council meeting is as confused as ever.
The telegram sent out to the various delegations today, according to my sources, was signed by Trujillo, Menon and Martin.
- Source: USUN Files, IO, Membership. Official Use Only.↩