795.00/8–1450
Memorandum of Conversations, by Mr. Charles P. Noyes, Adviser on Security Council Affairs, United States Mission at the United Nations1
Subject: Korea
| Participants: | As shown below. Conversations, separately, with |
| Mr. C. P. Noyes, United States Mission |
During the meeting, I asked Ordonneau for an explanation of the sentence in their speech relating to Rau’s proposal,2 indicating that [Page 578] this was a confidential proposal which it was agreed would not be discussed publicly. Ordonneau indicated that Rau was going to make this proposal public in his speech and that the French Delegation had instructions to support it. I indicated I was very much surprised and that we had had no advance warning that the proposal was going to be made. I showed concern that this would result in splitting the solidarity of the Members of the Security Council who supported the Council’s decisions. I doubted that we should admit that this was a parallel of the Berlin Case. Ordonneau shrugged his shoulders and indicated it was too late for them to do anything about it.
I called Menon out of the meeting to ask him what was the proposal they intended to make. I referred him to the text of the French draft speech which had already been given to the Press. He indicated the nature of the proposal to me and pretended surprise that I did not already know about the proposal which had been discussed with Ambassador Gross. I indicated we knew they were thinking of something of this sort but did not know they were planning to make it, or its details. Menon came around later to advise Ambassador Gross that Rau had seen Malik about the matter on Saturday; that Malik’s reaction had been rather cool. Menon was obviously somewhat embarrassed about the whole matter.
Hans Engen (Norway) asked me what our reactions were to the Rau proposal. I said we hadn’t any yet. He indicated that the Indians had not really discussed the matter with them before the meeting; that they had not been told the details of the Indian proposal or consulted about it. His personal view was that it was rather naive.
Ambassador Sunde refused to comment to the Press on the Rau proposal and implied to me, afterwards, that he did not like it much.
Cordier was upset by the way the Indians had introduced this proposal—in particular, the mean way in which it had referred to the United States.