Foreign Relations of the United States, 1946, Paris Peace Conference: Proceedings, Volume III

CFM Files

United States Delegation Minutes

Paris, October 3, 1946, 9:30 p.m.

secret

Present

	U.S.
	The Secretary (Chairman)
	Senator Connally
	Senator Vandenberg
	Mr. Bohlen
U.K.		U.S.S.R.
Mr. Bevin		Mr. Molotov
Mr. Alexander		Mr. Vishinski
Mr. Jebb		Mr. Novikov
Interpreter		Mr. Pavlov
	France
	Mr. Couve de Murville
	Mr. Seydoux
	Also present: Mr. Fouques du Parc

The Secretary, who in the absence of Mr. Bidault presided, said the day before yesterday he had called on Mr. Molotov to suggest the desirability of a meeting in order to work out a program for the plenary sessions of the Conference. He had seen Mr. Bevin today on the same subject. He said the necessity of some schedule of rules of procedure had been impressed upon him today when he had heard that the Italian Commission had taken 52 votes at their session last night. He continued that after talking with Mr. Molotov he had consulted Mr. Spaak because of the latter’s long experience in international conferences and recently as the President of the General Assembly. In reply to his request, Mr. Spaak had sent him a letter containing certain suggestions, which he would now circulate.²

When the letter had been circulated The Secretary added that when he had talked with Molotov they had both considered that possibly the best method would be to limit the number of speeches that could be made pro and con on a given question before the plenary, but that after talking with Spaak and considering the latter’s suggestions he had come to the conclusion that Mr. Spaak’s approach was even better; namely, to limit each delegation to 30 minutes on each treaty.

He said he thought one of the difficulties of limiting the number of speakers would be the selection of the two speakers for and the two speakers against in the event that many delegations wished to speak on a given question. In any event, if there was to be discussion on all the various reports, majority as well as minority, from the various commissions, even two speakers to a side would mean long debate. Under Mr. Spaak’s suggestion each treaty would be considered as a whole and each delegation would be assured of 30 minutes in order to express its general observations on the treaty as a whole or on any specific clause or amendment which it deemed sufficiently important to speak on.

He concluded by saying that he was not as disturbed as Mr. Bevin should be on these matters of procedure since Mr. Bevin would be the unfortunate first President and would have to deal with all these difficulties. He said he thought that if Mr. Bevin had to select two speakers from among ten delegations desiring to speak, his life would be even more lively than it had been on the Palestine Commission.

Mr. Molotov remarked that they had no Palestine question here.

The Secretary stated that another advantage of the Spaak proposal was that it would guarantee to every delegation a maximum of 30 minutes and that it was to be presumed that each delegation would utilize the time at its disposal in speaking on the points of any given treaty in which it was mostly interested.

Mr. Molotov said that he would not present a Soviet paper which he had prepared but was willing to accept as a basis the suggestions advocated by Mr. Byrnes contained in Mr. Spaak’s letter.

M. Couve de Murville said he wished to point out that the question of procedure had already been examined by the Secretariat for the last two days and that they had a preliminary draft which was, with minor exceptions, unanimously agreed upon in the Secretariat. Having only read Mr. Spaak’s proposal briefly, he nevertheless felt there was much in common between these suggestions and the draft of the Secretariat. He felt the only question was whether there should be general discussion on each treaty, as Mr. Spaak suggested, or whether discussion should be confined to each article as it comes up, as the Secretariat proposed.

The Secretary said he felt that Mr. Spaak’s approach would be preferable since if there were to be two speakers a side on separate articles he would have to renew his request to M. Bidault to provide accommodations for Christmas as they would certainly still be here then.

Mr. Bevin said as he understood the difference, in Mr. Spaak’s proposal there would be a general statement from each delegation not to exceed 30 minutes, drawing particular attention to the clauses in which that delegation was interested; whereas, the Secretariat felt that discussion should be on each clause separately. He said he preferred the latter, which was very much like British Parliamentary proceeding on the second reading of a bill. He said he thought in this case that the Anglo-Saxons were right.

Mr. Molotov answered that the bloc had won out and the Soviet Delegation surrendered.

The Secretary then said he had two additional suggestions to make on Spaak’s proposals, and read the following:

1. The treaties shall be considered by the plenary in the order named in the Potsdam Agreement. But if the reports on all parts of a treaty are not ready, it shall not delay the consideration of the treaty next in order, and the treaty passed over shall be considered as soon as the reports are ready and the deliberations of the treaty being considered by the plenary are concluded.

2. Upon the conclusion of the statements by delegates referred to in section II of Mr. Spaak’s letter, the plenary shall proceed to vote without further discussion on the various articles of the treaty the amendments referred to in the reports and on any other amendments proposed in committee, whether or not voted on in committee if a vote thereon is requested.

Mr. Molotov said it was not entirely clear to him and he felt that there was some contradiction between these additional suggestions of Mr. Byrnes and the proposals of Mr. Spaak. He thought that the first sentence of paragraph (1) of Mr. Byrnes’ suggestion is acceptable and that they should take up the treaties in the order set forth in the Potsdam Agreement. But he felt that the second sentence was in contradiction and suggested that it be eliminated. He felt that they should oblige the Chairmen of the commissions to finish their work on time. They had been told to finish by the 5th and if, as he understood, it was proposed to begin the considerations on the 7th, this would give them an additional two days. In any event, he proposed to adhere to the order set forth in the Potsdam Agreement.

The Secretary replied that the second sentence was merely to guarantee against the possibility that delay in the Italian Economic Committee, which he understood was behind its schedule, would hold up the whole work of the plenary sessions; but he agreed with Mr. Molotov that the Italian Economic Commission should be asked to complete its work and he was therefore willing to strike out the second sentence if his colleagues felt that the commissions would in fact be finished.

Mr. Molotov said he felt there was also a contradiction between section (2) of Mr. Spaak’s letter and the second proposal of Mr. Byrnes concerning amendments. Mr. Spaak suggested that there should be no amendments considered unless they were expressly mentioned in the commissions’ reports, whereas Mr. Byrnes’ suggestion appeared to be in the opposite sense. He said he preferred Mr. Spaak’s suggestion.

The Secretary explained that the reason he had made this amendment to Mr. Spaak’s suggestion was to take care of any possible slip or negligence on the part of the rapporteurs, who might in the press of work leave out some amendment or other which had been presented by a delegation and that his proposal would merely assure them the right to correct this mistake and have the amendment voted on. He said he wished to emphasize that it was not a question of any new amendment.

Mr. Couve de Murville said he thought there was little chance that any delegation would allow its amendment to be forgotten in drawing up the commission’s report.

After some discussion it was agreed that it was up to the individual delegations to make sure that none of their amendments were omitted from the reports of the commissions, and that point (2) was unnecessary and the Secretary agreed to withdraw it.

Mr. Bevin said as the unfortunate first chairman he wished to be quite clear on the question of voting. As he understood Mr. Spaak’s suggestion, when a clause came up for voting he would ask if any member wished a roll call or objected, and if not he would then rule that the article in question had been adopted unanimously. If any delegation wished a roll call, he would put the clause to a vote by roll call.

It was agreed that Mr. Bevin’s interpretation was correct.

Mr. Bevin said he hoped it would be possible to have a plenary session of the conference before Monday, that is, either Saturday or Sunday, if technically possible, in order to adopt the rules of procedure, so that on Monday the plenary could begin the examination of the Italian treaty.

Mr. Fouques du Parc said he did not know whether it would be technically possible since the Economic Commission on Italy, despite all their efforts, might not be ready by Monday.

The Secretary pointed out that the point made by Mr. Fouques du Parc did not really bear on the point under discussion since a plenary session to approve rules of procedure could be held Saturday or Sunday irrespective of the status of the work of the Italian Commission.

Mr. Molotov said he thought they should urge the Italian Economic Commission to finish its work by Friday night.

Senator Vandenberg said he thought this would be possible if the Chairman was told to invoke his powers under Rule 4 of the Rules of Procedure.

It was agreed that the Chairman of the Italian Commission should be requested to finish the work by Friday night.

It was also agreed to call a plenary session for 4:00 p.m. on Sunday October 6, to consider the rules of procedure. Mr. Spaak’s suggestions were to be sent to the Secretary General as directives for the drawing up of definite proposals concerning rules of procedure, and to utilize such of the Secretariat’s draft rules as were not in conflict with the suggestions of Mr. Spaak.

[Annex]

The Belgian Foreign Minister (Spaak) to the Secretary of State

Paris, October 3, 1946.

My Dear Minister: Having thought over the question you were so good as to ask me yesterday, I am sending you the following suggestions calculated to speed up the work of the Plenary Conference. In my opinion some such rules should be adopted if we are to finish our work in time.

I. Reports—Since the Reports are written documents which will have been distributed, they should not be read from the tribune. This may possibly be asking a little sacrifice from the Rapporteurs, but such personal considerations should not prevail.

II. Statements by Delegates—I think that for each Treaty there should be no more than one statement pro [per?] Delegation, to which no more than thirty minutes should be allowed. Such statements would have to comprise general observations as well as the position taken with regard to particular provisions.

There would be no discussion of particular articles.

This would seem to be justified by our legitimate desire to gain time as well as by the fact that the whole discussion has taken place in the Commissions. There is no need to repeat it in plenary meeting. It is only necessary to draw the conclusions from the work that has been done.

As far as possible, the Delegations and the Secretariat should be In a position to circulate written translations of the statements at the moment they are made, so as to render unnecessary the greater part of the oral interpretation.

III. Amendments—No amendments other than those expressly mentioned in the Reports should be presented.

Amendments mentioned in the Reports might be put to the vote, but not to be discussed.

IV. Voting—Each article of each Treaty should be voted on, but the vote should not be by roll-call unless a delegation requests it.

If no roll-call is requested, the article should be deemed unanimously adopted.

V. Any delegation should be free to ask for the insertion, in the Record of Decisions, of written supplementary observations explaining its attitude or the reasons of its vote concerning any matter examined by the Conference.

VI. These rules of procedure should be adopted in a preliminary plenary meeting.

If the delegations are wise enough to accept some such suggestions, I think we may be able to finish our work in time.

Yours very sincerely

P. H. Spaak

2. The annex to this document.