Foreign Relations of the United States, 1948, General; the United Nations, Volume I, Part 1

IO Files: US(P)/A/8

Memorandum of Conversation, by Mr. John Foster Dulles of the United States Delegation to the General Assembly

confidential

[Paris,] September 19, 1948.

Participants:	Dr. Evatt, Australian Delegation
	Mr. Atyeo, Australian Delegation
	Mr. John Foster Dulles, United States Delegation

Dr. Evatt and Mr. Atyeo came to see me at the Crillon on September 19, at 3 p. m. Evatt, as a preliminary, intimated that from what he had heard of the United States program as regards Greece, Korea, etc., it seemed reasonable.

The discussion then turned to the presidency of the Assembly. I told Evatt, as I had been authorized, that

(1) as matters now stood we contemplated voting for him;

(2) we were not prepared to campaign for him;

(3) we did not look with favor upon a Latin American bloc vote in favor of a Latin American candidate and were prepared actively to oppose that;

(4) he could, if he wanted to, say that he understood that as matters now stood the United States felt disposed to vote for him.

Evatt said that he appreciated this statement of our attitude which he thought satisfactory and reasonable. He thought the greatest danger was that the Latin American states, caucusing tomorrow, might unexpectedly agree to back a Latin American candidate and get for him the support of the Arab bloc and the Soviet bloc. He hoped that if the United States as I indicated, was against this, we would make our influence felt for the Monday caucus as afterwards might be too late as was the case last year.