Office of the Historian

550.AD1 Interim Commission/164

The Second Secretary of the British Embassy (Gore-Booth) to the Chief of the Division of Economic Studies (Stinebower)

Washington, July 12, 1943.

Dear Leroy: You will remember that when Twentyman49 and I came to see you the other day, you asked us why the Foreign Office thought the assistance of the League of Nations officials would be appropriate in connection with the drafting of the Interim Commission resolution.

I think I cannot do better than send you herewith the substance of the Foreign Office’s reply to the questions which we put to them immediately after our discussion.

As you see, the main emphasis, as we suspected, is on the organisational aspect of the League’s assistance rather than on the language of a general resolution.

Yours ever,

Paul H. Gore-Booth
[Enclosure]

Telegram From the British Foreign Office Dated July 10, 1943

We had in mind the use of terminology suitable for acceptance by many governments with different constitutional positions.

But perhaps more important than this is the experience possessed by League of Nations officials in methods of drawing up and agreeing budgets of international organisations, the management of voting powers, the relation of the governing body to the individual members, the authority of the Director General, etc. It would seem that this sort of experience would be very useful when the Commission comes to draw up the constitution of the permanent organisation.

  1. E. Twentyman, British representative on the Interim Commission.↩