Foreign Relations of the United States, 1948, General; the United Nations, Volume I, Part 1

501.BB/11–2048

The Secretary of State to the Secretary-General of the United Nations (Lie)

Paris, November 19, 1948.

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The Senior United States Representative to the General Assembly of the United Nations presents his compliments to the Secretary-General of the United Nations and has the honor to transmit herewith an amended list¹ of the United States Delegation to the Third Session of the General Assembly of the United Nations as of November 19, 1948.

It may be noted that, in the absence of the Secretary of State,² the Honorable John Foster Dulles will act as Chairman of the Delegation; the Honorable Benjamin Cohen is named as a Representative, having previously been designated as an Alternate Representative; Mr. Dean Rusk is named as an Alternate Representative, having previously been designated as an Adviser of the Delegation.

The Honorable Warren R. Austin has left the Delegation because of illness.³

1. Not printed.
2. Although the attached “amended” list was headed by the name of Secretary Marshall, actually he flew back to Washington on November 21; see footnote 1, p. 14.
3. An anomalous situation arose after November 21, in the absence of both the Secretary of State and the accredited U.S. Representative at the United Nations (Austin), and because of the curious loop-hole in the 1945 law which made no provision for a Deputy U.S. Representative at the United Nations (see again the letter from the Secretary of State to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, March 17, 1948, which asked for amending legislation to correct this defect, p. 3). Arrangements that were effected subsequently were on a strictly ad hoc basis and though they had Presidential authorization were hurriedly improvised in at least one instance.

   There is ambiguity as to the chief U.S. official at Paris after November 21. Though Mr. John Foster Dulles was designated Acting Chairman of the U.S. Delegation to the General Assembly, he was not named acting U.S. representative in respect of the Security Council nor acting chief of the U.S. Mission at the United Nations; normally in the absence of the Secretary of State all three positions were held by the same man, the U.S. Representative at the United Nations. In this case Professor Jessup was appointed in an acting capacity for both the Security Council and the Mission, and he was in effect Acting U.S. Representative at the United Nations. Professor Jessup was appointed to the personal rank of ambassador by President Truman on December 2. See also footnote 1, p. 20.