449. Memorandum of a Conversation Between the Yugoslav Ambassador (Mates) and the Deputy Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs (Murphy), Department of State, Washington, October 31, 1956, 5 p.m.1

SUBJECT

  • 1. Yugoslav Views on Middle East Crisis
  • 2. Yugoslav Views on Polish and Hungarian Situation

Ambassador Mates, at his own request, called on Mr. Murphy at 5:00 PM today.

He stated that he was under instructions to inform us of his Government’s attitude toward the Middle East crisis, to give us some of the reasoning behind its attitude, and to inquire with respect to our view on moving the issue to a special session of the General Assembly, and what position we would take there.

The Yugoslav Government was worried lest an accumulation of vetoes and consequent Council inaction would undermine the prestige and in general hamstring the United Nations. Without endeavoring to foresee what kind of recommendations would come out of a special session of the General Assembly and the specific position the Yugoslavs would take, the Yugoslav Government, nevertheless, felt that transfer of the issue to the larger body would provide an opportunity for private conversations and contribute to a cooling of feelings. He said that it would have been his Government’s preference to have the special session called by petition of UN Members rather than Council action; but since the Soviet Delegation, and the Egyptians seemed to be poised with condemnatory resolutions to introduce, which would only invite further vetoes, his Government had decided upon the Security Council method of invoking the Uniting for Peace resolution. Ambassador Mates was obviously anxious to know whether the Yugoslav motion in the Council would have our support as he feared that if the motion failed to carry we might be even worse off than before. Mr. Murphy was able to assure him of this point, although we were not prepared ourselves to take the initiative.

The Yugoslav Ambassador also recounted in summary the two conversations that Brilej had had with Sobolev with respect to the motion to use the Uniting for Peace procedure. At first Sobolev was adamant, asserting that since the Soviet Union had opposed resolution 377 (V) in the first instance and consider it illegal, he, Sobolev had no freedom. Brilej reportedly was so insistent that Sobolev be [Page 896] realistic and exercise his own judgment in a matter of this importance (Brilej appealed to the many other manifestations of increased flexibility on the part of the Soviet Government in recent times) that Sobolev “agreed” to take the matter under consideration. This was yesterday.

This morning Sobolev notified Brilej that the Soviet Delegation would be able to support convening a special session of the General Assembly but said that if a special session is not called or failed of approval, he had a resolution which he would, under instructions, introduce in the Security Council. The “deal” seems to stem from this set of circumstances.

As to the nature of our instructions to the US Delegation in case a special session of the General Assembly is called, Mr. Murphy said that the matter is under intense study.

[Here follows discussion of the Polish and Hungarian situation.]

  1. Source: Department of State, Central Files, 684A.86/10–3156. Confidential. Drafted by Walmsley.