IO/ODA Files: Lot 62D228, Box 230, “Colonial Policy”
1Memorandum by the Assistant Secretary of State for United Nations Affairs (Hickerson) to the Acting Director of the Office of Dependent Area Affairs (Robbins)
Subject: Review of United States policy regarding dependent territories in the light of the Fourth Session of the General Assembly.
As a result of our recent experiences during the Fourth Session of the General Assembly regarding matters pertaining to non-self-governing and trust territories, it is generally agreed that the United States policy on such matters should be thoroughly restudied in order [Page 370] that appropriate steps may be taken by this Government in relation to other United Nations Members, prior to the next meeting of the General Assembly.
Work should be undertaken on this problem immediately after the holidays and should be performed by a small group in which UNA, the geographical bureaus and S/P will be represented. The work which this group will need to perform falls clearly within the terms of reference of CDA—the Department Committee on Dependent Area Affairs—which are as follows:
“To initiate studies and formulate recommendations regarding American policy toward dependent area problems, to formulate recommendations for implementing such policy, and to provide a clearing house for information regarding dependent area problems of more than local significance. The Committee is particularly concerned with the work of the following international organizations and the role of the United States Delegations to these organizations: The Trusteeship Council, the General Assembly’s Special Committee on Information Transmitted under Article 73(e) of the Charter, Committee 4 of the General Assembly, the Caribbean Commission, and the South Pacific Commission.”
The membership of CDA as a whole, however, is too large to constitute an effective working group. It is therefore my belief that the working group should be set up as a sub-committee of CDA which would have as its chairman the Director of UND and should consist of those representatives of the geographical bureaus who have been principally responsible for handling United Nations work within their respective areas, i.e., ARA–Mr. Dreier, EUR–Mr. Raynor, FE–Miss Bacon, NEA–Mr. Kopper, and S/P–Miss Fosdick.
In order that this survey of our whole policy may get under way at once, you should get in touch with the persons mentioned above and plan meetings beginning next week.
- Subject files of the Director of the Office of Dependent Areas for the years 1943–1961, as retired by the Bureau of International Organization Affairs.↩