500.A/2–547
Memorandum of Telephone Conversation, by the Deputy Director of the Office of Special Political Affairs (Boss)
Senator Austin telephoned at 10:40. I left Mr. Acheson’s staff meeting to take the call.
The Security Council yesterday had set up a Subcommittee consisting of the four or five Members of the Council who had submitted procedural resolutions (including Senator Austin) for the purpose of trying to draw up a resolution that might be generally acceptable.1 The Senator was about to leave for a meeting of this Subcommittee scheduled for eleven o’clock this morning at the United Nations Manhattan headquarters. He said that we had virtually no support for the second paragraph of our resolution providing for a Committee to report on the terms of reference of the proposed new Commission. At the Subcommittee meeting this morning he would make the strongest possible case for the Committee.
On the other hand, he thought in his tactical situation that it might be easier for him to win acceptance of the Committee if he could agree, should it be necessary to do so, to language in paragraph 2 of our resolution which would cover Item 3 on the Security Council’s agenda, [Page 396] which is the brief General Assembly Resolution of December 14 concerning information on the armed forces of the United Nations. The Senator read to me the following phrase, “which shall include Item 3 of the agenda, the resolution of the General Assembly concerning information on the armed forces of the United Nations (Document S/230)”2 which would be included after the phrase in paragraph 2 reading “terms of reference of the proposed Commission”.
I told the Senator that unless he heard from us to the contrary he should feel free to accept an amendment along the lines indicated should he find this necessary in order to save paragraph 2. (I immediately thereafter checked with Mr. Acheson who approved what I had said and I telephoned this message to the Senator.)
The Senator went on to say that he was afraid it was going to be very difficult to resist an effort which he felt would reflect the majority view in the Council to eliminate the Committee idea entirely and provide the terms of reference for the proposed Commission in paragraph 1 of our draft resolution.
I asked the Senator if he thought any definitive conclusions were likely to be reached by the Subcommittee at its meeting this morning. I suggested to him that before the Subcommittee reached any definitive conclusion some of the Members might want to consult their delegations or their governments.
The Senator commented that so far as he was concerned he was not going to accept anything today unless he was fully satisfied with it.
- The United States Delegation had submitted the draft resolution on the regulation of armaments approved by the President to the Security Council at its 98th Meeting, February 4. For the text of Senator Austin’s statement introducing the resolution, including the text of the resolution, see SC, 2nd yr., No. 9, pp. 150–154. The Security Council, unable to reach agreement on the basis of the new United States proposal, created a subcommittee consisting of representatives of the United States, the Soviet Union, France, Australia, and Colombia, for the purpose of drafting an acceptable resolution by means of informal discussions.↩
- For text, see telegram 962 from New York, December 13, 1946, Foreign Relations, 1946, Vol. i, p. 1099.↩