Office of the Historian

422. Telegram From the Delegation to the Conference on the Law of the Sea to the Department of State1

Geneva, April 20, 1960—10 p.m.

1726. Law of Sea. Garcia Robles (Mexico) proposes to table tomorrow 18-power proposal providing for (1) 12-mile exclusive fishery jurisdiction coastal state; (2) no agreement at this conference on breadth territorial sea; (3) postponement of conference for five years; [Page 798] (4) freeze of existing territorial sea limits for five years although Tunisia, which has not yet gone to 12 miles may oppose freeze.2

Further conferences with Ghana and Sudan and somewhat hostile attitude Ethiopian representative and fact members Arab League feel bound by Arab League votes and members of African League feel bound by African League votes makes it somewhat difficult to plan with any degree of certainty on African votes.

Father Riedmatten (Holy See) and Ambassador Quiroga (Spain) both told me heads Latin American Delegations extremely anxious to vote with US and to make conference a success but that we would have to accept Ecuadorian and Chilean proposal outlined by our tel 1713.3

While we could probably accept the Ecuadorian amendment, UK feels Iceland would push for extension historical rights in cases where any state had gone beyond 6 miles prior to convening of present conference, which would, of course, eliminate most of 10-year fishing for Western Europeans and Israel whereas our principal sacrifice would be off coast of Mexico. Shrimp representatives here find it exceedingly difficult to agree to 10-year cut-off coupled with Ecuadorian amendment. Don’t know as yet whether proposal my tel 17204 would be acceptable Europeans though UK view it favorably as possibly solving Icelandic situation.

Herrington, Suomela5 and delegation fishery advisers strongly oppose such revision in view negation results US efforts past ten years to protect US fishing industry and long-range claims of coastal states and possible imposition unacceptable burden on US industry. It is their view that some other means must be found to obtain critical Latin American votes. If Western Europeans cannot accept Ecuadorian proposal outlined our tel 1713, we are exploring possibility of our negotiating bi-lateral agreements with Ecuador, Chile, Argentina, Guatemala and El Salvador that US would claim no historical rights their outer six miles and seeking to obtain similar agreements between Uruguay and Brazil on the one hand and with Argentina on the other. However believe we must have fairly free hand to negotiate if we are to be able to get ⅔ majority in this critical phase of the conference.

All proposals must be tabled by noon Friday after having been cleared with Latin Americans and Western Europeans. In view complete uncertainty African situation and in view opposition Pakistan and West Germany to accept notification of warships in outer 6, believe [Page 799] acceptable arrangements with Latin Americans constitute our best hope, and choice is between attempting to save conference on some practical basis or continuing a generally fearful attitude which is bound to cause conference failure. Would appreciate instructions.

In reference our tel 1720 change “above” after “referred to” to “provided for in Article 9 of the aforementioned Convention.”

  1. Source: Department of State, Central Files, 399.731/4–2060. Confidential; Priority. Received at 5:39 p.m.↩
  2. For text of this proposal, which was sponsored by 12 states and circulated as ACONF.19/L.9, see U.N. doc. ACONF.19/8, p. 172.↩
  3. Document 420.↩
  4. Supra.↩
  5. Arnie J. Suomela, Commissioner, Fish and Wildlife Service, Department of the Interior.↩