790.00/5–2551: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Embassy in the United Kingdom
priority
5480. Pls deliver immed fol personal msg from SecState to Morrison:
“I wish to say again that I very much appreciate your friendly and constructive reply of May 101 to my earlier message of May 12 on some of our problems in the Far East. I gave my first impressions of your reply to Sir Oliver Franks and have since been giving the entire matter further study.
Although I do not wish now to go into all of the subjects which need further attention, I think it might be necessary for us to have an additional exchange of views on the question of Chinese representation in the United Nations. This matter is particularly acute at this time because Mr. Malik becomes President of the Security Council on June 1 and may take occasion to raise the issue again. We believe it of great [Page 248] importance that we try to find some working understanding with you on this question as soon as possible. We understand that the United Kingdom Delegation would, under its present instructions, have to support the seating of the Chinese Communists if the issue is raised in the Security Council.
In your recent message tome you indicated that your view on Chinese representation flowed naturally from your conception of the doctrine of recognition and you indicated a desire to have something more as to what we have in mind for achieving a ‘moratorium’.
Our hope is that you could agree that so long as the aggression continues in Korea, the Chinese representation issue should not be substantively considered by United Nations bodies and that where it appears that the Soviets or others might raise the issue, our two Delegations should consult in advance to concert on procedures which both Delegations could support for avoiding a vote on the substance.
Specifically, this might take the form of a motion to the effect that the body concerned decides not to consider such a proposal so long as the aggression in Korea continues. Alternatively, the motion might be that consideration of and action on the matter be postponed so long as hostilities continue. Such an attitude would parallel the position of Norway as stated by Foreign Minister Lange and reported in the press on April 19 that Norway opposes United Nations representation for Communist China while aggression in Korea continues.
Examples of the way in which our two Delegations could handle this matter occurred in recent meetings of the Peace Observation Commission, the Committee of Twelve on Armaments and the Narcotics Commission. In these cases our two Delegations were able to reach an agreed procedure by which a vote on the substance of the representation issue was avoided. Our two representatives, however, were not able to reach such an agreement for the Executive Board of the Children’s Fund which met on May 22.
Our impression is that a majority of the Council would much prefer not to have this matter come up for consideration on its merits and under the present conditions in Korea. We ourselves would be very glad to find a way to avoid a formal registration of our basic difference. Since it appears unlikely that we shall be able to work out that basic difference, we think the best move would be for us to prevent questions being dealt with in such a way as to force a vote on the substance; A procedure for postponement would appear to us to offer a reasonable way out of the difficulty.
I shall be in communication with you further about some of the other points which we have discussed. Needless to say, we are gratified by the recent success in Korea and are giving thought to what might be done to move that matter along to a settlement.
We are looking forward to Mr. Dulles’ forthcoming visit to London on the Jap peace treaty3 and hope that we shall quickly reach full agreement on a subject on which I am sure our purposes and general approach are the same.”
- Supra.↩
- See telegram 4969, April 30, p. 245.↩
- For documentation on this subject, see vol. vi, Part 1, pp. 777 ff. The reference is to John Foster Dulles.↩