IO Files: US/A/C.1/1719
Memorandum of Conversation, by Mr. Harley A. Notter, Adviser, United States Delegation to the United Nations General Assembly
Subject: US–UK Substitute Resolution
| Participants: | Mr. Parrott, United Kingdom Delegation |
| Sir Alexander Cadogan, United Kingdom Delegation | |
| Rt. Honorable Hector McNeil, M. P., United Kingdom Delegation | |
| Mr. Hayden Raynor, United States Delegation | |
| Mr. Harley Notter, United States Delegation |
About noon today Mr. Warner of the United Kingdom Delegation informed us that the British would wish to talk with us. There had already been an earlier conversation in which full agreement had been reached on the only matters either side had wished to raise, and accordingly this news was disturbing.
The conversation that ensued was in two parts. Mr. Parrott first talked with Messrs. Raynor and Notter concerning the British desire to eliminate the provisions concerning “free access”. Their argument was that in view of the “extremely disturbing” developments in Committee 4 yesterday, in regard to a resolution in which the United States had been a co-sponsor, in connection with the study of educational development in colonial areas,1 the British had had a new wave of great doubt about this matter. They had initially been somewhat worried over this provision, not only because of the concern of South Africa lest it adversely affect their problem of South West Africa, but because of more general reasons, and in that connection they had [Page 136] already given some thought to the application of this clause on free access to colonial areas. We reasoned with Parrott as well as we could on the events of yesterday regarding the intentions of the United States, and arrived at the following wording: “free access in the performance of the tasks assigned to them under the Charter”. Parrott was willing to raise this and thought it quite all right as middle ground, but he was not sure his delegation would accept it. We agreed to raise it with our principal.
At this juncture Mr. McNeil came along and shortly after called over Sir Alexander Cadogan for a further long conversation. Mr. McNeil gave every impression of feeling that his delegation had been goaded to the limit and would go no further in regard to compromises with Committee 4 on their colonial areas. He was not only angry and annoyed, but he was distressed that the United States had not discouraged Committee 4 from adding to the powers of the special committee, and in the special committee itself had not opposed the “dangerous tendencies” towards exceeding the plain bounds of the Charter in regard to Chapter 11.
Neither Mr. Raynor nor Mr. Notter had been at the meeting of Committee 4 yesterday, but in the circumstances we felt compelled to address ourselves to the basic cause of this explosive attitude against us. Mr. McNeil wanted to delete the whole provision on free access. He did not think that the compromise wording was sufficient to accomplish adequate protection against the inroads being made by the special committee “with the assistance of you Americans”. He said he felt it was time that the colonial powers of Europe got together and agreed not to send representatives to the special committee but only “observers”. He was prepared to announce that his government would be prepared to do this as a direct protest against the illegal extension of the provisions of Chapter 11 and the latitudinous interpretation of the obligations undertaken by colonial powers thereunder.
We stated that the object had been to divert the attention of the special committee from highly controversial political matters on which there had been such great concentration in recent years and to concentrate on functional and technical subjects, and secondly, to hold the committee’s attention on a given subject each year so that its work would be more orderly, and the opportunity for controversy would be more limited.
Mr. McNeil asked why we did not stress in that committee the limits of our objectives instead of leaving the interpretation wide open that we were prepared as a next step to send visiting U.N. missions into colonial areas. We reminded him that we submitted informational reports under Article 73(e) on Puerto Rico, Alaska, Hawaii, etc., and [Page 137] that so far as we knew we had no interest in establishing a precedent that visiting missions would be sent into the territories reported on. In fact, we thought it quite safe to assume that Congress would explode if consent were given to send missions to Puerto Rico, Hawaii or Alaska under this same provision that worried them. In short, we said, an extreme interpretation had been placed on our intentions by his and some other delegations, and we had no such thought in mind. He said: “Then why in Hell don’t you people make this clear to that Committee?”
On the point concerning free access, we argued as follows: We said that it was this point which was one of the few which definitely would be unacceptable to the Soviets; that the point applied, in our opinion, to the Balkan Commission, the Korean Commission, which the Soviets opposed; that we could hardly consent to the deletion of the free access clause altogether without running great risk of a breakup of the present excellent support which this resolution had come to enjoy throughout the overwhelming majority of our friends in the Assembly, and that some compromise wording should be made. When Mr. McNeil said that the word “legally” should be inserted before the term “assigned tasks”, we said this would play directly into the hands of the Soviets. He agreed and no longer pressed this point, although he returned to it once or two times more.
We found it necessary to argue even further and did so along these lines: The British would be protected under the proposed compromise wording of “the tasks assigned to them under the Charter”. If the British were afraid of abusive extensions of the scope of Chapter 11, they always could resort to the Court. Indeed, that was the essential difference between the British position and the Soviet position in this regard: the Soviets had never been willing to refer the legality of the above two commissions and the Interim Committee to the Court for a ruling, whereas the British might be willing, and we would think it would be a good thing, if the British felt as strongly as they did, to refer such a question as this to the Court. We could not speak for our delegation in many of these arguments or suggestions, but these were evident possibilities in the inherent circumstances. We agreed with Mr. McNeil that if the colonial powers felt that they should take extreme action, there should be a discussion of the whole matter at a high level among the parties in interest.
Sir Alexander thought that the compromise wording which Mr. Parrott and we had worked out was a definite improvement and appeared willing to proceed with it. Mr. McNeil felt it necessary, however, to refer this matter by telegram to his government, including the Colonial Office. When he announced this, we sharpened our arguments [Page 138] even more in the hope that he would realize that we wanted to proceed as a team in this matter; that this was a difficult time of heated feelings in which to consider our American views with the full weight that we ourselves attached to them; but we very much hoped that a strong case would be built in favor of this proposed wording as a compromise, leaving to the speeches to develop anything further that might be desired by the British.
In sketching in our presence the telegram to be drafted by Parrott, Mr. McNeil said that the fears of the British delegation should be expressed, the views of the American Delegation as we had asserted them, and the point should be made that the British always could refer to the Court for a ruling on this matter, in which unquestionably the British view would be sustained. He developed this thought in the sense that in 1947 both Sir Hartley Shawcross2 and John Foster Dulles had urged the Russians to seek the ruling of the Court on their charges of illegality of the Interim Committee, and said that he would wish in the debate in Committee I next week to say in his speech that certain illegal actions were being taken, in the view of colonial powers, but his government was willing to have their charges sifted by the Court and a judgment given, and would advise the Soviet Union to do likewise with its charges of illegality of the commissions and committees it objected to.
We broke up at this point. It is uncertain, accordingly, early in the afternoon on Saturday, whether it will be necessary to make a major change in the resolution or not. The compromise wording would not be a major change, even though undertaken to satisfy an extremely strong objection on the part of the United Kingdom. We undertook to refer this compromise wording as quickly as possible to Senator Austin.
Our discussion broke up in a very friendly manner with the temperature of the British perceptibly reduced, but with their opinions regarding the merits of the matter held just as strongly as before.3
- Documentation on this subject is included in material on questions relating to Article 73 of the Charter (non-self-governing territories outside the United Nations trusteeship system), pp. 340 ff.↩
- Member, of the British Delegation; British Minister of State.↩
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In a memorandum of telephone conversation, November 15, Notter stated the following:
“At 9:35 this morning Mr. Parrott talked with me on the telephone, at his instance, to inform me that on the basis of word from London the British Delegation accepted the compromise wording of ‘free access in the performance of the tasks assigned to them under the Charter’.
He said that this freed the full text from any further question at all from the standpoint of his delegation.
I expressed pleasure at hearing this, and he said he was ‘relieved at the outcome’.” (IO Files: US/A/C.1/1757)
Ambassador Austin had in the meantime introduced the United States-United Kingdom draft resolution, incorporating this wording; see pp. 139, 143.
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