Editorial Notes
The Third Session of the General Assembly began at Paris on September 21, 1948. On October 1, the United States Delegation sent to the Department for comment a tentative draft resolution on the Greek case, to be used as the basis for conversations with friendly delegations (telegram Delga 174). The Department, on October 9, suggested various changes (telegram Gadel 165). Taking these modifications into account, the Delegation agreed on October 13 with the delegations of France, China and the United Kingdom to sponsor jointly a resolution, the text of which was sent to the Department on October 20 (Delga 413).
The Director of the Office of Near Eastern and African Affairs (Satterthwaite), in a memorandum of October 22 to Mr. Lovett, stated that the competent Greek officials had expressed to the Department their “bitter disappointment” at the “hopeless weakness” of the draft resolution. He also set forth his belief that “there is considerable justification in the Greek complaint and that submission of the draft resolution in its existing form would force the Greeks, as they state, to the embarrassing and fruitless expedient of submitting an independent and extreme Resolution. Adoption of a weak Resolution in this case would, moreover, further undermine the prestige of the UN and the Powers supporting Greece, would seriously affect morale in Greece, particularly of the Army, and might consequently lead to grave political and military difficulties in that country.” The memorandum noted that “NEA has substantially strengthened the wording of the proposed draft resolution and repaired certain omissions without, however, committing the US to any action we may not wish to take.” For revised draft, see telegram Gadel 284, October 22, page 271.
All documents cited in this note are filed under 501.BB Balkan.
The third interim report of the United Nations Special Committee on the Balkans, covering the period September 11 to October 22, was signed at Athens on October 22. The report “strengthens and confirms the conclusions” contained in the Committee’s reports of June 30 and [Page 270] September 10; for text, see United Nations, Official Records of the General Assembly, Third Session, Part I, Plenary Meetings, Annexes, page 275.