Foreign Relations of the United States, 1946, General; the United Nations, Volume I

501.BD/10–1046

Memorandum Prepared in the Department of State²⁷

[Washington,] October 10, 1946.

Draft

Remarks of Mr. Leroy Stinebower²⁸ at Membership Team Meeting October 10, 11:00 a.m.

Mr. Stinebower, who had returned from New York a few days previously, discussed with the Membership Team his recollection of the events which had taken place in the process of reaching an agreement with the other members of the ECOSOC preparatory to the election of the members of 8 Commissions by the Council.

Mr. Stinebower stressed the fact that final agreement was reached after Mr. Winant had talked directly with Mr. Acheson by telephone and had received approval for raising the Soviet representation on the 6 original Commissions from 13 to 14 states. Mr. Stinebower took the view that if there was any dissatisfaction with the final results, it should be attributed to a failure to keep Mr. Acheson adequately informed about the problem, as a result of which Mr. Acheson took a decision which was not in accord with the instructions sent to New York by the Membership Team.

Mr. Stinebower also emphasized Mr. Winant’s desire to reach unanimous agreement with the Soviets on the slates, as a desirable method of procedure and as a method of possibly gaining sympathetic consideration by the Soviets for our plan for an Economic Commission for Europe. The final agreement, Mr. Stinebower stated came after a long evening session during which Mr. Winant negotiated with the Soviets and the British. At that stage the Soviets were insisting on 15 Eastern European seats on the 6 original Commissions while our limit was 13 seats. Finally it was agreed to split the difference and give the Eastern European bloc 14 seats. Since the Soviet representation on all 8 Commissions thus rose to 19 seats it was considered necessary to raise the Latin American representation 1 seat to preserve parity. Mr. Stinebower understood that the concept of parity had been specifically accepted in these final negotiations. He made the point that the negotiators linked together the seats allocated to the British Dominions and India and that this total too reached 19 seats.²⁹

Mr. Stinebower further stated that no member of the Council appeared to be aggrieved at the result of the elections except Greece, which had only one seat as compared with two for Lebanon. He commented on the fact that there was no sizable dissatisfaction among the four Latin American members of the Council, who had demanded a total of 22 seats for the Latin American states. He also explained the loss of Liberia on the ground that the Big Three considered it was too backward to form [perform] its responsibilities on any Commission.

Mr. Stinebower explained the inclusion of Poland on the Economic and Employment Commission but noted that the Soviets had insisted on this concession as a prerequisite for unanimity. He indicated that Mr. Acheson had approved by telephone the addition of Poland on this Commission as the additional Soviet seat.

Mr. Stinebower further declared that it proved important [impossible] to leave any Commission seat vacant in order to save them for Sweden, which is not yet a member of the United Nations. Finally, he noted that reaching unanimity it was possible to keep countries off the Commissions when we did not wish them seated. In this connection he mentioned specifically how difficult it was to keep the Dominican Republic representative, Miss Bernardino, off the Commission on the Status of Women.

27. Drafted by Mr. Popper of the Division of International Organization Affairs.
28. Leroy D. Stinebower, Special Assistant to the Assistant Secretary of State for Economic Affairs (Thorp), also serving at New York as United States Deputy Representative on the Economic and Social Council.
29. In a revised memorandum drafted October 11 Mr. Popper wrote, following this paragraph: “When the Soviets continued to insist on giving still another seat to the Byelo-Russian SSR, we indicated that our absolute maximum allotment for the Eastern group was 19 seats for 8 Commissions. We said that if the Soviets wanted an additional seat for Byelo-Russia, they would have to reduce the representation of some other Eastern state. Eventually the Soviets acquiesced, but this necessitated a considerable reshuffling of seats involving both the Eastern group and other countries.” (501.BD/10–1146)