Office of the Historian

106. Letter From Secretary of State for External Affairs Green to Secretary of State Herter1

Paris, October 30, 1959.

Dear Mr. Herter: Your Embassy in Paris has today delivered to me your letter of October 29,2 on the Security Council election issue and I do appreciate your having taken the trouble to explain so fully and frankly the bases of your concern. I genuinely regret, too, that our respective appraisals of this issue have led us to differing conclusions.

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I share your concern about what might be the consequence of a continuing deadlock in the voting for the Eastern European seat on the Security Council. At the same time, I do not think it is realistic to expect that the issue can be satisfactorily resolved at this stage by the transfer of votes from one of the present candidates to the other. Had there been an earlier canvass of opinion amongst members of the Western side regarding elections to the various UN Councils to be elected this year, I quite agree that we would all have seen objections to electing one state to two Councils, but I do not think this is a consideration on which one could base a withdrawal of support after some thirty ballots. At this stage a compromise solution seems necessary.

As I explained to Mr. Murphy in Ottawa,3 I thought that on the basis of past experience, the deadlock might be resolved either by an agreement between the candidates to split the two-year term between the candidates standing down in favour of a third country which was reasonably acceptable to both groups. Yugoslavia, Austria and perhaps even Finland might be possibilities, though I imagine that none would accept the nomination unless they were assured that it was acceptable to the main sponsors of Turkey and Poland. Having in mind the cold war character which this contest has already assumed, it seems to be too much to hope that either of these solutions can be brought about by the manoeuverings of delegations in the General Assembly, and I have spoken in this sense to both the Turks and the Poles. To the Turks, whose Representative on the NATO Council was talking to me on this subject when your letter arrived, I have of course stressed that our voting for Poland was not in any way incompatible with our respect for Turkey as an ally or our recognition that it would make an admirable member of the Security Council.

I am afraid that if the present wrangle goes on much longer and if the prestige not only of the competing candidates but of the main groups that back them is further committed, the effect on the prospects for the success of East-West negotiations during the months ahead will be bad. In the shorter run, chances of getting more or less agreed arrangements in the Security Council for a continuing UN presence in Laos, or for getting off to a good start on disarmament within the Ten-Power Committee, may be prejudiced. I have been encouraged to believe that considerations like these underlie the spontaneous support and understanding throughout Canada for the position our Government has taken.

It is because I believe that such easing of East-West relationships as these last weeks have seen is due in large part to President Eisenhower’s initiative and leadership that I have been wondering whether [Page 198] you and the United Kingdom would not consider discussing with the Russians the possibility of an understanding with them about the Security Council seat.

With kind personal regards.

Yours sincerely,

Howard Green4
  1. Source: Department of State, Central Files, 330.10–3059. Confidential. Attached to the source text is an October 30 letter from Rae forwarding the letter to Herter.↩
  2. Supra.↩
  3. Regarding Murphy’s October 23 conversation with Green, see footnote 2, ibid.↩
  4. Printed from a copy that bears this typed signature.↩