Foreign Relations of the United States, 1958–1960, United Nations and General International Matters, Volume II

318. Memorandum From the Head of the Delegation to the Conference on Antarctica (Phleger) to the Deputy Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs (Merchant)¹

Washington, November 19, 1959.

At the meeting of the Heads of Delegations at 10:30 A.M., November 19, the following took place:

• 1. There was a continuation of the discussion on the Article on nuclear explosions. The draft considered at the last meeting, being a combination of the Japanese and South African proposals, was discussed at length. All present stated they favored it, with the exception of the Soviet representative who said he did not have his instructions on the subject as yet.
• 2. The question of accession was then discussed.

The U.S. representative stated that there were two proposals pending; one, the New Zealand proposal for accession by UN members and members of UN specialized agencies, the U.S. favoring this clause which had many precedents. It was willing, however, to enlarge this formula by adding part of the Soviet proposal, which was that additional states might be invited by unanimous consent of the Article VIII parties. The U.S. representative stated that this formula was similar to that employed in the atomic agency treaty² except that in the atomic agency treaty, invitation was by majority of the council. However, because of the Soviet desire for unanimity the U.S. was willing to accept the formula for unanimity.

The U.S. stated that the Soviet formula for admission limited to the UN and those invited by unanimous invitation of the Article VIII powers was not acceptable.

The Soviet representative then stated that it had instructions which would prevent it from agreeing to any proposal other than the Soviet proposal, namely with accession open to UN members and those invited by unanimous act of the Article VIII powers. He said that the Soviet opposed the inclusion of specialized agencies because the membership of the specialized agencies had been denied to numerous socialist states and, therefore, was a mechanism for discrimination against socialist states. The Soviet proposal was a neutral formulation which was not discriminatory. The Soviet representative said that this was a repetition of a statement he had made on numerous other occasions so he would not elaborate on it, but that his instructions were firm on this point.

When the views of other delegates on this question were asked, none of the other delegates responded and after a considerable period it was decided to take up the question of future procedures in the event that agreement on the treaty was reached.

[Here follow three paragraphs on administrative matters.]

1. Source: Department of State, Central Files, 399.829/10–959. Confidential. Drafted and initialed by Phleger.
2. For text of the Statute of the International Atomic Energy Agency which entered into force July 29, 1957, see 8 UST 1093.