Lot 71–D 440, Box 192321
Memorandum by the Director of the Office of Special Political Affairs (Rusk) to the Under Secretary of State (Lovett)
Means for United Nations Action Against Aggression: Possible United States Proposals at Next Assembly
With the imminence of the second Session of the United Nations General Assembly, which will convene on September 16, thought has been given by various officers of the Department to placing on the Agenda of the Assembly United States proposals having as their aim the enlistment of maximum United Nations assistance against direct and indirect aggression inimical to the interests of the United States.
There are three tentative proposals on which the preliminary views of the officers attending your morning meeting would be most helpful:
1. Action Looking Toward the Maintenance of the Independence of States.
The first is a possibility that this Government might advocate at the next Assembly Session that a Permanent Commission be established to investigate and study threats against the integrity of States through indirect aggression.2 Such attack might take the form of infiltration and Fifth Column activity, the subversive actions of minority groups, illegal traffic in arms, the abuse of economic concessions, the machinations [Page 568] of international Communism, or other measures falling short of outright armed aggression across frontiers.
It is thought that such a Commission might be composed of the twenty-one States which make up the Security Council and the Economic and Social Council. Such an “automatic” choice of membership would have several advantages. The principal of these would be that, although smaller powers would hesitate to accept service on a Commission whose duties would be surcharged with heavy political responsibility and therefore political risk, if the membership of the Commission were already predetermined, on the very good logic that maintenance of the integrity of States involves both questions of security and problems of an economic and social character, much of the onus of service on such a Commission would disappear. The new body would, it is thought, be appointed by the next Session of the Assembly and directed to report back to a Special Session meeting in the Spring of 1948.
The establishment of the Permanent Commission would afford a means of bringing together the consensus of many governments that covert assault upon the integrity of States must effectively be resisted. It must be admitted however, that even though the Assembly by a two-thirds vote might grant such a Commission wide powers of investigation and recommendation, the Russians and their satellites would most certainly resist, and could effectively prevent, the Commission from visiting areas in which their sovereignty is supreme.
Despite this difficulty the appointment of such a Commission would present advantages from the aspect of United States policy both domestic and foreign. It would provide a six months spotlight on the problems of indirect aggression. So far as the domestic picture in the United States is concerned this would materially assist the Department in educating popular opinion to the dangers and responsibilities of the situation confronting us today. From the international point of view this spotlight might, however, unless properly handled, serve more to highlight the cleavage between the Western and Eastern worlds than to focus on possible bridges to bring those worlds together. In consequence it would seem imperative that the terms of reference of the Commission and U.S. participation thereon be designed so as to leave the door open to the U.S.S.R. to join in the work of the Commission and to cease the type of activity complained of.
2. Mutual Assistance Treaty under Article 51.
The second possible step which the United States might take would be to broach a global plan for mutual assistance supplementary to that now provided for in Chapters VI and VII of the Charter. This would, in effect, be a world wide treaty of mutual assistance along [Page 569] the lines of the Act of Chapultepec3 and the contemplated mutual defense treaty to be negotiated in Rio next month,4 but keyed to the requirements of Article 51 of the Charter which provides:
“Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken the measures necessary to maintain international peace and security. Measures taken by Members in the exercise of this right of self-defense shall be immediately reported to the Security Council and shall not in any way affect the authority and responsibility of the Security Council under the present Charter to take at any time such action as it deems necessary in order to maintain or restore international peace and security.”
The mutual defense arrangements would automatically go into effect under Article 51 in the event of an armed attack, pending effective action by the Security Council. If the Council did not undertake effective action the network of mutual assistance engagements would fill the void occasioned by misuse of the veto in the Security Council.
The multilateral convention for measures of self-defense would be complementary to the proposed twenty-one State Commission on indirect aggression. It would be the purpose of the multilateral pact to deal with armed attacks, leaving to the Security Council, the 21 State-Commission and the States concerned the problem of covert aggression. It is thought that, if smaller States such as Greece and Turkey had concrete assurance that in cases of armed conflict they would have the automatic support of other and more powerful States, they would be free to dispose more of their resources and energy in combating instances of infiltration and subversion within their own borders.
The advantage to the United States of a mutual defense pact would be two-fold. In the first place such a pact would impose a legal obligation on the signatories to take action to meet overt aggression. Such an obligation is today perhaps implicit in the Charter of the United Nations but it is not explicit. The second advantage would be that in the event of aggression threatening the security of the U.S., even though such aggression took place against a third party, the U.S. [Page 570] would have clear legal sanction for such measures of self-defense as it might find necessary to take immediately, pending assistance from other signatories of the multilateral treaty or pending action by the Security Council according to the terms of Article 51.
3. A Treaty for Control of Atomic Energy.
The third possible proposal which the United States might advocate at the next session of the Assembly relates to the control of atomic energy. There is no question but that a complete impasse has been reached in the Atomic Energy Commission so far as really effective control of the atomic bomb is concerned. It might serve our purpose if the Assembly should pass a resolution calling upon the Atomic Energy Commission promptly to draft a treaty for the international control of atomic energy and to submit this draft to a Special Session which would convene in January, 1948. Such a Special Session would focus world scrutiny on the stumbling blocks in the way of effective international control of atomic energy, where these stumbling blocks lie and who is responsible for them.
It is apparent at this point in the thus far fruitless debates in the Atomic Energy Commission that time is running out and running against the interests of the United States. The more months spent in circumlocution the more time the Soviet Union has in which to perfect its atomic armament. However, it would be very difficult for the U.S. abruptly to break off negotiations in the AEC and take remedial measures for the improvement of its security without having clearly shown to the world and to the American people that it has exhausted every ounce of patience and endeavor to find a meeting of the minds within the framework of the AEC and the UN in general. Once the proposed draft treaty were elaborated and brought to a special session of the UN General Assembly, if then there could be no compromise and no agreement, the political preparation would be complete for the U.S. to regain its liberty of action.
- Folder “Committee 1, Interim General Assembly Committee on Peace and Security”.↩
- For documentation on United States interest in increasing the effectiveness of the United Nations, including material on the United States proposal for the creation of the Interim Committee of the General Assembly, see pp. 166 ff.↩
- Resolution VIII, “Reciprocal Assistance and American Solidarity,” known as the “Act of Chapultepec,” approved at the plenary session, March 6, 1945, of the Inter-American Conference on Problems of War and Peace, Mexico City; for text, see Department of State, Report of the Delegation of the United States of America to the Inter-American Conference on Problems of War and Peace, Mexico City, Mexico, February 21–March 8, 1945 (Washington, Government Printing Office, 1946), p. 72, or Department of State TIAS 1543 (60 Stat. 1831); for additional documentation on the Conference, see Foreign Relations, 1945, vol. ix, pp. 1 ff.↩
- For text of the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance, opened for signature at Rio de Janeiro, September 2, 1947, see Department of State TIAS 1838. For documentation on the Inter-American Conference for the Maintenance of Continental Peace and Security, August 15–September 2, 1947, see vol. viii, pp. 1 ff.↩