451. Memorandum of Conversation1
SUBJECT
- Antarctica
PARTICIPANTS
- Members of Foreign Embassies: Dr. Guyer (Argentina); Mr. Morrison (Australia); Mr. Steyaert (Belgium); Mr. Bianchi (Chile); Mr. Barthelemy (France); Mr. Sugihara (Japan); Mr. McLean (New Zealand); Mr. Blaksted (Norway); Mr. Franklin (Union of South Africa); Mr. Filippov (U.S.S.R.); Mr. McCall-Judson (United Kingdom)
- George R. Owen, IO; Wayne W. Fisher, IO
The Chairman of the Twenty-seventh Interim Meeting of representatives of Antarctic Treaty signatories, held today, was Mr. Morrison of Australia.2
[Page 1019]Ratification of Antarctic Treaty
The Chilean representative, who returned recently from a visit to Santiago, stated that the only reason the Treaty has not been pushed is that the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the Chilean Senate has been “occupied with other urgent and pressing matters.” He said Parliament is now in recess to permit campaigning for the March elections, and will reconvene on March 14. The Foreign Office, he said, would make every effort to have the Treaty considered between mid-March and the end of April.
Agenda of the Canberra Meeting
The French representative distributed copies of an explanatory note (copy attached)3 to accompany Item 12 of the list of 17 tentative agenda items. Item 12, which relates to reciprocal assistance among expeditions, was proposed for the agenda by France. He said France had no intention of attempting to define a code of conduct for expeditions, but hoped for some definition of the measures the head of an expedition could take in an emergency without consulting with his Government. He did not envisage the establishment of any special group to study this question at Canberra, although the matter could be discussed at the meeting if there were experts on the question present.
The Japanese representative said he had received instructions from his Government stating that after consideration it does not wish to propose an agenda item on the subject of cooperation in joint scientific research projects, joint management of bases, and joint logistic support. He had raised this matter at the Twenty-fourth Interim Meeting on December 6, 1960 when he had announced that Japan was considering abandoning its Antarctic operations next year (memorandum of conversation, IO: WW Fisher, December 6).4
Referring to Item II of the proposed agenda (preservation of historic sites), the New Zealand representative said that this year’s New Zealand expedition was making an effort to restore the two huts used by Captain Scott on his expeditions, and would also try to restore Shackleton’s hut. This action was being carried out in full consultation with the Royal Geographic Society and would provide experience which might be useful in consideration of this Item.
Rules of Procedure for Canberra Meeting
In a discussion of this subject, the French representative said that the draft Rules (distributed by the Australian representative at the Twenty-fifth Interim Meeting on December 14, 1960) should be amended [Page 1020] to refer to “recommendations” rather than “decisions” of the meeting, to accord with the wording of Article IX. Otherwise France approved of the draft Rules. France, he said, believed that the final report of the meeting should contain only these recommendations unanimously adopted. If all decisions were reported, however, minority opinions should also be included.
Speaking as the Australian representative, the Chairman said his Government hoped to be able to avoid majority and minority reports and wanted the final report of the meeting to be unanimous. Hopefully, the drafting committee would be able to agree unanimously on a form of words, which the plenary would then adopt. Any differences could be ironed out in the plenary session, or deleted from the report entirely.
Mr. Owen said the main question was not how decisions of the meeting are to be reached, since the meeting was, under Article IX, intended to be consultative and to recommend “measures” that would in any event become binding only if approved by the Governments. The actual problem was what kind of report it was desired to have the meeting produce; a report could be in narrative form. He recommended that this be given further thought.
Exchange of Information on Expeditions and Stations
The Chairman acknowledged the receipt, since the last meeting, of papers distributed by the Belgian and Chilean representatives. With reference to the Chilean paper, which referred several times to “the Chilean Antarctic Territory,” the Argentine representative distributed a statement in Spanish (copy attached)5 reaffirming Argentina’s “rights of sovereignty throughout the totality of its Antarctic territory.” He then translated the statement aloud in English. Referring to both the Chilean paper and the Argentine statement, Mr. Owen recalled the traditional position of the United States which does not recognize the validity of any territorial claims in Antarctica. The Chilean representative stated that the mention of “Chilean Antarctic Territory” in the Chilean paper had not been intended as a reaffirmation of Chilean claims in Antarctica, and that he did not understand why there was objection to it. The Argentine representative pointed out that in the paper he had distributed previously on Argentine Antarctic activities, there had been a conscious effort to refrain from using any language that would bring up the problem of sovereignty in Antarctica. (Mr. Bianchi has been handling Antarctic matters for the Chilean Embassy since 1958. Had he been in Washington at the time the Chilean paper was distributed it is quite possible that he would have favored removing the controversial reference prior to distributing the paper.)
- Source: National Archives and Records Administration, RG 59, IO Files: Lot 69 D 169, Antarctica Files, Chronology, January–March 1963. Official Use Only. Drafted by Fisher.↩
- Reports on the Interim Meetings of the Antarctic Treaty signatories during 1960 are ibid., Central Files 1960–63, 397.022.↩
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