424. Memorandum of Conversations, Department of State, Washington, April 21, 1960, 10:15 a.m.1
SUBJECT
- Law of the Sea Conference
PARTICIPANTS
- Department of State:
- L—Mr. Hager
- L/SFP—Mr, Pender
- L—Mr. van Heuven
- U/LS—Mr. Arneson
- U/FW—Mr. Blow
- Department of Defense:
- Admiral Ward
- Captain Neese
- Department of the Interior:
- Mr. McKernan
- Mr. Wright
Mr. Arneson opened the meeting by reviewing the various proposals which have been or are now before the Conference. These proposals include those of Peru (Geneva 1629), Cuba (Geneva 1630), Argentina (Geneva 1631), Ecuador (Geneva 1714), Chile (Geneva 1704), Iceland (Geneva 1645), the proposal of Ambassador Correa (Geneva 1727), and also the proposal regarding technical assistance by TAB and FAO (Geneva 1709).2
With respect to Ambassador Dean’s request for guidance regarding the latter proposal it was agreed that Ambassador Dean would be informed that he could support this proposal in substance. Mr. Arneson undertook to draft a cable and to clear it with Interior.
The meeting next considered the proposal by Ambassador Dean for the inclusion of an additional paragraph in the United States-Canadian formula. This proposal would provide that coastal states would have preferential fishing rights beyond 12 miles under special conditions and carefully prescribed circumstances, and subject to determination by an arbitral commission, all in accordance with the provisions of the Convention on Fisheries and Conservation of the Living Resources of the Sea adopted in 1958 (Geneva 17203). Mr. McKernan stated that Interior would not be able to accept the idea of preferential fishing rights beyond 12 miles. Admiral Ward, who was about to leave the meeting early, restated the position of the Defense Department to the effect that it [31 words not declassified]. He commented that, from a tactical point of view, it would be preferable to [Page 801] have conference failure as a result of an inability to agree on a fixed breadth of the territorial sea rather than to have conference failure as a result of our inability to go along with a consent requirement.
Mr. Hager pointed out that the procedural situation in plenary requires at present that our proposal be voted on first. In that case, if our proposal fails, it would be very difficult to control what the conference might decide on. It might in fact agree upon proposals which would be far worse from our point of view than the one suggested by Ambassador Dean (Geneva 1720).
At this point telephone connections with Geneva were established and Mr. Arneson and Mr. McKernan talked with Ambassador Dean.
After Mr. McKernan had talked with Ambassador Dean for a brief period Mr. Hager joined the conversation and Ambassador Dean reviewed briefly the two questions that Mr. McKernan had asked and the answers he had given. These were as follows:
1. Mr. McKernan had asked whether the fisheries advisers had moved from their opposition to the proposal in Geneva’s 1720 as reported in Geneva’s 1726.4Dean said that he thought that they were still opposed, but that they considered it as a better alternative than the Icelandic proposal and accordingly were “reluctantly going along with it.”
2. Mr. McKernan asked whether Ambassador Dean had taken any action in connection with the proposal in Geneva’s 1720. Ambassador Dean stated that he had agreed with Argentina, Chile, Ecuador, Guatemala and El Salvador that the proposal would be incorporated into the US-Canadian proposal and had initialled drafts with those five States. He said that he had taken this action on his own responsibility because it was essential that agreement be reached promptly on account of the time factor involved in preparing the necessary documents before the deadline for filing, and because he had considered it vital to arrest the growing sentiment in favor of the more extreme Latin American proposals. He advised that this action was acceptable to the United Kingdom, Canada and the Western European nations, including Portugal.
He said that he had, with the approval of the fisheries representatives, also agreed with the above five Latin American States that the U.S. would enter into bilateral agreements with them to the effect that it would not initiate the procedures under the 1958 Convention relating to Fisheries and Conservation for the establishment of U.S. historical rights in the outer 6-mile zone, which meant in effect that the U.S. would not assert its historical rights in that zone with respect to those five States. He indicated that the fisheries representatives were of the opinion that there were no such historical rights in most areas, and that where there were any, they were of little value to the industry. He [Page 802] said that as a result of these agreements, Ecuador and El Salvador would abstain and Argentina, Guatemala and Chile would vote for the U.S.-Canadian proposal.
In answer to questions as to the order of voting, he said that under the normal voting order the Icelandic proposal and the US-Canadian proposal, both of which had been reported to the plenary by the Committee of the Whole, would be voted upon before any new proposals introduced in the plenary. On this basis, the rumored new Mexican proposal would be voted on after ours. He said that he was considering a possible procedural maneuver whereby we would seek to have our proposal voted on last, in the hope of obtaining some support from those nations which were committed to vote for 12 miles in the plenary but which had instructions broad enough to permit them to vote in favor of our proposal after defeat of any 12-mile proposal. He did not go into detail, but indicated that the success of this maneuver would depend upon our being able to obtain a majority vote in favor of it. He added that he understood that the Mexican proposal was encountering some difficulty, the list of co-sponsors having dropped from 18 to 12.
When asked about the general chances of success for our proposal, he indicated that it was still too early to tell, but that he hoped that Ghana would vote in favor and that possibly Liberia, Tunisia and Libya might abstain, and that on that basis he expected that the vote might be 54–27–7 or 52–26–10, which would barely carry our proposal in the plenary.
He said that Belgium was still proving extremely difficult. He understood that our representatives and others had put so much pressure on the Foreign Minister that he had left town for three days. He said that the Minister of Agriculture was at present the responsible Minister in the matter and he suggested we consider approaching him. He understood that this Minister was under considerable pressure from the Belgian fishing industry. Ambassador Dean suggested that it might be most helpful if the Minister of Agriculture could be approached by President Hoover, who was revered in Belgium, or by Baron Silvercruys, for many years the Belgian Ambassador to the United States.5
Mr. Hager stated that he would report the substance of the telephone conversation to Under Secretary Dillon as promptly as possible.
Mr. McKernan said he would talk with the Secretary of the Interior this afternoon and recommend to him that Interior do nothing to “rock the boat” at this stage of the proceedings.
- Source: Department of State, Central Files, 399.731/4–2160. Confidential. Drafted by van Heuven. The conversation took place in Hager’s office.↩
- Regarding telegrams 1629–1631, see footnotes 2 and 3, Document 413; telegrams 1704, 1709, 1714, and 1727, dated April 19–21, are in Department of State, Central Files, 399.731/4–1960 through 399.731/4–2160; for text of the Icelandic proposal transmitted in telegram 1645 (ibid., 399.731/4–1260), see U.N. doc. ACONF.19/8, p. 169.↩
- Document 421.↩
- Document 422.↩
- At 5:32 p.m. on April 22, the Department transmitted to Brussels a letter from President Eisenhower to the Belgian Prime Minister appealing for support of the U.S.-Canadian proposal. (Telegram 1235; Department of State, Central Files, 399.731/4–2260)↩