Foreign Relations of the United States, 1947, General; The United Nations, Volume I

IO Files: US/A/488

Memorandum of Conversation, by Ambassador William Dawson of the United States Delegation Staff of Advisers

secret

[ New York ,] September 26, 1947.

Pursuant to Aranha’s request of last evening, I called on him this afternoon to give him our Economic and Social Council and Trusteeship Council slates as follows (checking first with Mr. Raynor):

Economic and Social Council:	Brazil, Denmark, Iran, Poland, U.S.S.R., and United Kingdom
Trusteeship Council:	Philippines and Norway

Aranha took note, interposed no objection, and indicated that he intended to bring the slates to the attention of the Latin American group.

He requested that our Delegation put in a word for Brazil (for Economic and Social Council) with the Delegations of Iceland, Liberia, Ethiopia, and Siam. I told him we would be glad to do this.

In the course of our conversation, Aranha said that he had a letter from Evatt urging Australia’s candidacy for Economic and Social Council and that Mme. Pandit had requested support for India for the Security Council or, failing this, for re-election to the Economic and Social Council. He said that both candidacies might well complicate the situation. He referred to the strongly expressed desire of the Czechs not to be on the Security Council and suggested that, if they were dropped, India might replace them. I said that the Russians would presumably not be satisfied with this; that we were keeping Czechoslovakia on our list; and that, as respects India, it had fared extremely well in the distribution of United Nations posts, that it might well wait a year before resuming a place on some United Nations Council, and that in its new status it would have plenty of domestic problems to occupy its attention. With regard to Australia, I said that with Canada and New Zealand already on Economic and Social Council the election of a third Dominion (and particularly one so close geographically to New Zealand) probably offer difficulties, and that in any case, as far as we were concerned, we were already firmly committed to Brazil, Denmark, Iran, and Poland.