Office of the Historian

FE files, lot 55 D 480, “United Nations”

Memorandum by the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs (Drumright) to the Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs (Robertson)

confidential
[Washington,] April 6, 1954.
  • Subject:
  • UN Membership Question

Ref: Miss Bacon’s Memorandum of March 26 and Mr. Wainhouse’s Memorandum of March 231

I attended this morning the meeting of the Assistant Secretaries which was convoked in Mr. Murphy’s office, to discuss the UN membership question.2 The question had been raised by Ambassador Lodge, who seemed to think we should take a fresh look at it.

After considerable discussion, it was agreed among those present that we should stick to our present position which is one of opposing “package deals”. It was felt that acceptance of even a limited package deal, such as that proposed by Belaunde, would be highly dangerous in relation to the Chinese membership question. It was also felt that, with the Geneva Conference in the offing, no consideration of any change in our position should be attempted at this time.

Mr. Murphy accordingly instructed Mr. Key to reply to Ambassador Lodge in the sense indicated above.

  1. The Bacon memorandum of Mar. 26 has not been found in the Department of State files.↩
  2. No memorandum of this meeting has been found in the Department of State files.↩