310.2/10–2451
The Italian Prime Minister (De Gasperi) to the Secretary of State 1
My Dear Secretary of State: I was much distressed at learning that your Government do not see their way to take any action for the admission of Italy to the United Nations in this Session beyond the presentation of a motion in the Security Council which would meet, of course, with the instant and, by now, customary Russian veto.
I have not forgotten that during our conversations in Washington you raised some doubts as to the applicability of the procedure outlined in the Memorandum I had the pleasure of submitting to you. It was however my impression at the time that you intended to pursue, in consultation with other Powers, an extensive exploration of the matter, bearing fully in mind that, as demonstrated by the experience of the last four years, a purely juridical formula to end the deadlock does not exist and that an action on the part of the Assembly or the Security Council to circumvent the veto, such as brought about in similar cases, would be necessary and indeed unavoidable.
This was, at least in my understanding and, I believe, in the understanding of the Italian people and of many friendly Governments, the meaning of the pledge undertaken with the Three Powers Declaration. Failing this, the Declaration would mark no progress on the position assumed by your and other Governments with previous pledges made in concurrence with the USSR, such as the Preamble of the Peace Treaty and the Potsdam Declaration.
In the meantime a Russian note has been received, that puts the revision of the Treaty and the admission of Italy to the United Nations on the same political plane, while making the most unwarrantable demand that Italy leave at once the Atlantic Pact as a condition for the revision and, it is to be presumed, since the two questions are interrelated, for her admission to the U.N. If a Russian veto which is [Page 366] demonstrably null and void in our case, and would be even more palpably illegal after the stand taken by the USSR in their note, were allowed to block once again the membership of Italy without any reaction on the part of the Great Powers beyond verbal protestations, I am most certain that an unfavourable impression would be created. The Russian veto would come as no surprise to anybody in Italy, but what would be much of a shock and a surprise to everybody, I fear, is to apprehend that all the efforts that the Three Powers are prepared to do, on the strength of their recent Declaration, to support Italy’s admission would result merely in provoking a fresh veto from Russia.
On the legal side, moreover, the Italian people would fail to understand the cause of the inability of the Three Great Powers at finding a solution for Italy’s case as it is generally known that an adequate solution was found in other cases; among which the re-appointment of the Secretary General was perhaps the most striking. May I point out very briefly, in this connection, the similarities between the two positions. The two relevant provisions of the Charter, namely articles 4 and 97, have practically the same wording and require, in both cases, a recommendation of the Security Council. It is true at that time it was not a fresh appointment but a re-appointment of the same person. But a resolution taken by the General Assembly on January 24th, 1946 (doc. A/64) reads explicitly: “The same rules apply to the renewal of appointment as to an original appointment.”
In the view of my legal advisers this resolution, which was bypassed in the action taken by the Assembly, appears to have a more binding character than the advice rendered by the International Court of Justice on the case of the admission of new members which, as you know, is purely consultative.
I am afraid that these points, among others, will be made very forcibly both in Parliament and outside, and will put my Government and myself in an extremely embarrassing position.
I trust you realize the seriousness of the issue for my Government. May I add that I would be most obliged for an expression of your views on the matter. Believe me, my dear Secretary of State,
Sincerely,
- Source text sent by Ambassador Dunn to the Embassy in France (under cover of a letter dated October 24), for delivery to the Secretary of State upon his arrival in Paris to attend the General Assembly session. The Secretary of State in fact saw a cable text in Washington before his departure on October 25, which was transmitted in Rome telegram 1849, October 24, 2 p. m. and received in the Department of State at 10: 26 a. m. of the same day (310.2/10–2451). In sending the cable text, Ambassador Dunn took the occasion to stress how strongly the Prime Minister felt about the matter of Italian membership: “This question of admission to the UN is uppermost in the PriMin’s mind and he reiterated to me yesterday that this is almost more important than the revision of the treaty.”↩