501.BE/1–1849
The British Embassy to the Department of State 1
Aide-Mémoire
The Russians, having successfully refused to accept under trusteeship any of the territories which they themselves acquired as a result of the war, have not only turned the Trusteeship Council into a forum for a general onslaught on the policies of the Colonial Powers, but have also tried to secure resolutions calculated to cause the maximum difficulty in territories under trusteeship. At best compromises are now reached which are of little practical value to the administrators or to the inhabitants.
2. Unless the Soviet Union’s deliberate wrecking tactics can be somehow neutralised, the orderly and progressive political and economic development of large parts of Africa and South East Asia (not to mention the Caribbean and South Pacific areas) may be thwarted and hampered; unless the Russians can be prevented from using the Trusteeship Council as a propaganda sounding board, the subversive doctrines of Communism may make far greater headway in colonial areas than would otherwise be the case.
3. The tactics of the Soviet representative have hitherto been to inject as much propaganda and perverse injunction as possible into the Trusteeship Council’s reports, and then at the last moment to vote against a report, or abstain, on the ground that it does not go far enough, and insist on submitting a minority report of his own. In this way he has achieved far more space for Soviet views than is desirable. It would be better in future to isolate the Soviet representative, and to ensure that he has to submit his minority report without first getting his views and formulae recorded at length in the majority report in the hope of reaching a compromise.
4. It is clear that the Soviet representative has in fact rather overplayed his hand with the result that the other non-administering representatives (save Mexico) are, generally speaking, reluctant to [Page 342] associate themselves with the extreme vituperation of the Russians. In these circumstances there seems a good chance of isolating and neutralising the Russians in the Trusteeship Council provided that a close working arrangement can be reached and maintained between the United States and United Kingdom representatives on the paramount importance of achieving this object.
5. The general tactics to be followed to this end might be:
- a)
- To expose the inaccuracies and absurdities of Soviet charges against the administering powers;
- b)
- To show that the Russians proceed from a desire to weaken the administering authorities for the sake of power politics rather than for genuine concern for the welfare of backward peoples—“the tears of the bear are much like those of the crocodile”;
- c)
- To expose conditions in the Soviet Union and perhaps satellite countries, and in particular Soviet Russia’s own disgraceful colonial practices, for instance in Central Asia. (Article 14 of the Soviet Constitution lays down a degree of centralisation undreamed of in, for instance, British colonies; and there is a good deal of other effective material from Soviet sources which can be quoted in such a manner that, even if the Russians argue that this is outside the competence of the Council, they will not be able to sling their mud with much effect. In this connexion the State Department may wish to refer again to the attached copy of a directive issued by the Foreign Office for propaganda countering Soviet attacks on “Colonialism” and Colonial Administrations, which is already in the possession of the Department.)2
6. The United Kingdom Delegation would be ready to play their full part in carrying out such tactics. But there is no doubt that much that would need saying—in particular under (c) above—would come far more effectively from countries less closely associated in the public mind than is the United Kingdom with colonial administration; the leadership of the United States, above all, is likely to prove decisive in rallying opinion, particularly among the non-administering powers.
7. The Foreign Office would accordingly be glad to know whether the State Department would be prepared to furnish the United States Delegates to the Trusteeship Council with all appropriate background material, especially quotable material, on Soviet administration of “colonial” territories, and to instruct them to concert tactics with the United Kingdom Delegates in this matter on the lines suggested above.
8. In making this suggestion the British Government are in no sense unmindful of the valuable cooperation received from the United States Delegation in the past. Nor do they for a moment wish to suggest that the interchange of constructive observations and criticisms in the Council should in any way be abated. The British Government for their part are always glad to receive these, particularly from the [Page 343] United States authorities with their considerable experience of administering non-self-governing territories; experience in the Caribbean Commission, for example, has shown how useful such interchange can be. But the British Government are concerned that in pursuing such discussions the Trusteeship Council should not allow its attention to be diverted from Soviet designs.
9. The British Government share with the United States Government a desire to gain the sympathy of emergent peoples. But they do not think that this aim can be achieved by attempts to out-bid the Russians in “liberalism” towards colonial questions. This is to play the Russians’ game. Being without responsibility they are in a position to raise the stakes indefinitely, to the point at which the only outcome is to undermine the position and authority of the colonial powers in their own territories. Nor does such competition with the Russians gain the respect of any responsible sections of opinion in the colonial territories themselves. The British authorities are convinced that the only sage and effective way of stealing the Russians’ thunder is, as suggested above, to demonstrate consistently to the world the hollowness of the Russians’ claims to be the champions of colonial peoples and at the same time to emphasise, wherever possible and appropriate, the achievements of the colonial powers in leading the colonial peoples towards self-government and independence and in progressively developing their territories, as well as the fundamental loyalty of the broad mass of the colonial peoples themselves.