Foreign Relations of the United States, 1947, General; The United Nations, Volume I

IO Files: US/A/397

Memorandum of Conversation, by Mr. G. Hayden Raynor of the United States Delegation Staff of Advisers

secret

[New York,] September 18, 1947.

Mr. Gladwyn Jebb and I had a long talk in the Lounge at Flushing this noon.

General

Mr. Jebb said that the British were interested in knowing the exact significance of the Secretary’s proposals¹ as some members of the Delegation were concerned and he thought Mr. Bevin might likewise be concerned as to whether by making these proposals we were in effect intending to precipitate a showdown with the Soviet Union or to accelerate its departure from the United Nations. I assured Mr. Jebb that we had no such intention in mind.

In answer to my inquiry, Mr. Jebb indicated that it was unlikely that Mr. Bevin would get to New York during the current meeting.

General Assembly Committee on Peace and Security

Mr. Jebb stated that the United Kingdom Delegation had sent a recommendation to London, urging support in principle for our proposal and rendering to the Foreign Office the opinion of the Delegation that it was clearly constitutional. Mr. Jebb said that, of course, this recommendation meant approval in principle and that there might be many points in connection with the terms of reference etc. on which they might have ideas varying in one degree or another from our views. Mr. Jebb seemed to be under some misapprehension as to exactly what our proposal was. For instance he was surprised when I explained to him that we envisaged that questions could be brought to the committee under Article 14 of the Charter. He thought our use of the words “peace and security” would restrict the committee to exactly what those words mean. He also asked questions designed to clarify in his own mind exactly how we felt our proposal related to the Security Council. I believe any doubts he may have had on this score were clarified.

Mr. Jebb then raised two questions of a more fundamental nature with respect to this proposal. He inquired (a) if we had considered the possibility that the making of this proposal might result in Soviet withdrawal from the United Nations; (b) what our attitude would be with respect to the proposal in the event (1) the Soviets took a position similar to their position on the Trusteeship Council that the creation of the committee was illegal and that therefore they would not participate, and (2) that similar action was taken by the satellites.

With respect to (a) above, I told Mr. Jebb that we had thought about this question, and that we thought it was now unlikely that the proposal would bring about Soviet withdrawal. My impression was that Mr. Jebb concurred in this opinion. With respect to (b), I told him that I had not heard the specific point either as to (1) or (2) raised in our discussions of this proposal, but that speaking unofficially, I thought there was no doubt but that what we would feel the committee should be created nevertheless.

Veto

Mr. Jebb implied that the British would not be able to go as far as we did in connection with the veto. He thinks the wisdom of relinquishing the veto in Chapter 6 is very questionable. I explained to him in some detail our general concept of approach to this problem. There is no difference in our fundamental objective of achieving liberalization in the implementation of the voting provisions of the Charter through interpretations, etc.

[Here follows consideration of other agenda items.]

1. Refers presumably to the Secretary of State’s speech to the General Assembly on September 17.