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

Statement by George C. Marshall, Secretary of State¹

May 5, 1948

Mr. Chairman, Gentlemen: I will outline for the Committee² the views of the State Department with respect to the structure of the United Nations and the relationship of this Government to the United Nations. I will try to place in perspective the steps which this Government has taken, and the proposals now before the Committee, on this subject.³

The interest shown by the great majority of Americans in the United Nations and in increasing its effectiveness is an impressive fact. A vast amount of thought is being devoted throughout our country to means of furthering the objectives of the Charter in the prevailing world circumstances. The attitude of the United States towards the problems of the United Nations will have a profound effect on the future of the organization.⁴

A clear understanding of the international situation is essential to decisions on the course we should pursue. Neither the United Nations nor any other form of world organization can exist as an abstraction without relation to the realities of a given world situation.

The United Nations was conceived on the assumption that certain conditions would develop following the war. These were: (1) that the major powers charged with responsibility for working out peace settlements would complete their task promptly and effectively; (2) that the critical postwar conditions in the economic and political fields would be brought to an end as speedily as possible; and (3) that the cooperation among the great powers pledged during the war and reflected in the Charter would be continuing.

The United Nations was specifically designed to preserve the peace and not to make the peace. The task of making the peace settlements was specifically recognized by article 107 of the Charter as one for the responsible victor powers. The United Nations can assist in this task, but the improvement of the United Nations machinery would not in itself solve the problem. Since the most important of the peace settlements have not been agreed upon, the United Nations has been compelled to carry on its activities under world conditions far different from those contemplated by the Charter.

It was obvious to the framers of the Charter of the United Nations that an effective organization to preserve the peace must include every major power. The San Francisco conference created an organization, the purposes and principles of which corresponded with the objectives of the United States foreign policy. The organization as developed at San Francisco received the overwhelming endorsement of the American people and had the virtually unanimous approval of the United States Senate.

This organization was designed to consolidate and strengthen over a long period of time the foundations of peace through common action in solving political, economic, social, cultural, and health problems. Machinery was established for the settlement of international disputes by peaceful means so that the advice and assistance of all members, and the mobilization of world public opinion, might be brought to bear in the pacific settlement of disputes. It was found possible to go considerably farther than the League of Nations in the establishment of enforcement machinery, but at the San Francisco conference none of the major powers was prepared to grant to this organization the right of enforcement against a major power.

When universal agreement to the Charter was achieved, the strength of the major powers in relation to one another was such that no one of them could safely break the peace if the others stood united in defense of the Charter. Under existing world circumstances the maintenance of a comparable power relationship is fundamental to world security.

The aspirations of the people of the world as set forth in the Charter of the United Nations have been shaken by developments since the summer of 1945. It gradually became apparent that the postwar conditions anticipated at San Francisco were not being realized. The failure of concerted action by the major Allies rendered it necessary for the United States Government to attempt to create the desired postwar conditions in cooperation with other states willing to do so.

It became progressively clearer that serious misconceptions prevailed in the minds of the leaders of the Soviet Union concerning western civilization and the possibilities for developing stabilized working relations between the Soviet Union and the other members of the community of nations. It is a misconception to suppose that domination of the world by a single system is inevitable. It is a misconception to suppose that differing systems cannot live side by side in peace under the basic rules of international conduct prescribed by the Charter of the United Nations. These rules are obligatory upon all members.

A fundamental task of the United Nations and of our foreign policy is to dispel the misconceptions of the Soviet leaders and to bring about a more realistic view of what is possible and what is impossible in the relationship between the Soviet Union and the world at large. In this way there can be restored to international society the equilibrium necessary to permit the United Nations to function as contemplated at San Francisco.

Our realization of the need for this equilibrium has led to action along several lines, all designed to create conditions favorable to the working of the United Nations. The first necessary step was to insure the freedom and independence of the members. The ability of democratic peoples to preserve their independence in the face of totalitarian threats depends upon their determination to do so. That determination in turn depends upon the development of a healthy economic and political life and a genuine sense of security.

Therefore, the United States Government is responding to requests to provide economic assistance to various countries in Europe and elsewhere. The United States is cooperating with 16 European countries in a recovery program providing for self-help and mutual aid.⁵

The United States Government is now considering the steps necessary to bring the national military establishment to the minimum level necessary to restore the balance of power relationships required for international security.⁶

The United States is acutely aware that the return of a sense of security to the free nations of the world is essential for the promotion of conditions under which the United Nations can function. The necessary steps for self-protection against aggression can be taken within the Charter of the United Nations. The Charter recognizes in article 51 the right of individual and collective self-defense against armed attack until the Security Council has taken the measures necessary to preserve peace and security. Articles 52, 53, and 54 provide for regional arrangements dealing with the maintenance of international peace and security, on condition that such arrangements are consistent with the purposes and principles of the Charter.⁷

In recognition of the possibility foreseen in the Charter that an armed attack might occur upon a member of the United Nations, despite the binding obligations accepted by every member to refrain from the threat or use of force against another state, the United States and the other American republics concluded at Rio de Janeiro last year a treaty for individual and collective self-defense. Certain countries of western Europe likewise have organized themselves into a Western Union, for their individual and collective self-defense. By such arrangements under article 51 of the Charter and the articles providing for regional arrangements, constructive steps have been taken to bulwark international security and the maintenance of peace. Our intention to afford encouragement and support to arrangements made by free nations for the preservation of their independence and liberty has already been stated by the President in his message to the Congress on March 17th.

The United States Government has followed an active policy of strengthening the existing machinery of the United Nations.

(1) We have endeavored to assure that the United Nations would carry out its responsibilities in dealing with the dangerous political issues which have arisen in various quarters of the world. We have sought to promote its basic work on economic problems, human rights, freedom of information, health, and related needs.⁸

(2) We have made proposals toward restraining the use of the veto in the Security Council and reducing the scope of the veto through its elimination from matters of pacific settlement and the admission of new members.⁹

(3) We proposed the establishment of an Interim Committee of the General Assembly, popularly known as the Little Assembly, to consider various possibilities for improving international cooperation and to put to work the undeveloped powers of the General Assembly in the field of international security. By means of this Committee the far-reaching influence of the General Assembly is being brought more effectively to bear in fulfilling the purposes and principles of the Charter.¹⁰

The United Nations is the forum of daily world negotiation. It is the world’s vehicle for dealing with basic economic and social maladjustments, for developing safeguards of essential freedoms, for advancing the development of dependent peoples and areas.

On several occasions negotiation in the United Nations, even during its short history, has postponed fighting long enough to remove the cause for fighting. It is a forum of negotiation where charges or distortions are held answerable, where violations of treaty obligations must meet the verdict of world opinion, and where those responsible must answer for their conduct. It is a forum where the nations of the world are called upon to uphold the purposes and principles of the Charter. United Nations negotiation affords continuing working contacts in international relations and an open door to communication between the East and the West.

A number of projects designed to improve international conditions by new forms of international organization have been proposed. These projects envisage radical changes in the existing United Nations Charter. Some propose the elimination of a veto on enforcement measures, the establishment of inequality of voting among the major powers, and the virtual elimination of the influence of small nations in Security Council decisions. Others go beyond the revision of the United Nations Charter and call for the establishment of new forms of international structure along the lines of world government. In general, the proponents of these projects recognize the probability that the proposals would not be accepted by at least one of the major powers and by a number of other governments now members of the United Nations. They advocate that in this case the respective projects be put into effect among such nations as would accept them.

All of these projects appear to rest on the assumption that the present unsatisfactory state of world affairs is a result of inability on the part of the United Nations to prevent aggression; that this inability arises from the exercise of the veto power in the Security Council and the lack of a United Nations police force; that if the veto power on enforcement decisions could be removed and the United Nations provided with armed forces, aggression could be prevented; and that the principal barrier to world peace would thereby cease to exist.

The general assumption rests I think on an incomplete analysis of our main problems of foreign policy at this juncture and of the part which international organization can play in solving them.

The underlying problem in the immediate future is to bring about the restoration of economic, social, and political health in the world and to give to the peoples of the world a sense of security which is essential for them to carry on the task of recovery. What is needed for the achievement of a world order based on law and dedicated to peace and progress is a widespread improvement in the material and social well-being of the peoples of the world. The responsibility for such improvement will always rest primarily upon the peoples and governments themselves. In this field the United Nations, however, can play an increasingly active role.

The factor of military strength is of immediate and major importance in the present world situation, but is not the element which will be paramount in the long run. The emphasis often placed solely on the military aspects of world affairs does a disservice to the cause of peace. The more that present differences are talked about and treated exclusively as a military problem, the more they tend to become so.

The problems today presented to those who desire peace are not questions of structure. Nor are they problems solvable merely by new forms of organization. They require performance of obligations already undertaken, fidelity to pledges already given. Basic human frailties cannot be overcome by Charter provisions alone, for they exist in the behavior of men and governments.

The suggestion that a revised United Nations, or some form of world government, should be achieved, if necessary, without those nations which would be unwilling to join, deserves special attention. Such a procedure would probably destroy the present United Nations organization. The result would be a dispersal of the community of nations, followed by the formation of rival military alliances and isolated groups of states. This result would weaken us and expose us to even greater dangers from those who seek domination of other states.

It is not changes in the form of international intercourse which we now require. It is to changes of substance that we must look for an improvement of the world situation. And it is to those changes of substance that our policy has been directed. When the substance of the world situation improves, the United Nations will be able to function with full effectiveness. Meanwhile we will continue our efforts in cooperation with other governments to improve the working of the United Nations under the Charter.

The United Nations was created after years of study and after many months of difficult negotiations. It now has 58 members. It is the symbol of the aspirations of mankind. Its success is the hope of mankind. All new efforts to attain order and organization in the affairs of men require time to grow roots in the loyalties of men. The history of our own people testifies to this necessity. Let us not in our impatience and our fears sacrifice the hard-won gains that we now possess in the United Nations organization.¹¹

1. Made before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on May 5, 1948, and released to the press on the same date; reprinted from the Department of State Bulletin, May 16, 1948, pp. 623–625.
2. The occasion for the Secretary’s appearance was the initiation of hearings on May 4 by the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives on H.R. 6802, a “one-package” House bill which brought together four separate legislative proposals that had been placed before the Committee, all sharing the common objective of strengthening the United Nations. This bill included a reaffirmation of the principles of the Charter of the United Nations as the basis for United States foreign policy; acceptance of the General Convention on Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations; approval of a loan agreement between the United States and the United Nations providing for a loan by the United States to the United Nations for the financing of the construction of the headquarters of the United Nations on the site at New York City; and a revision of the United Nations Participation Act of December 20, 1945, the statute governing the representation of the United States at the United Nations (59 Stat. 619), so as to strengthen and make more effective this representation. H.R. 6802 also included a section authorizing the lending by this Government of U.S. personnel to international organizations in which the United States participated, and also the performing of services for such international organizations by agencies of the U.S. Government.

   Relevant legislative documentation concerning H.R. 6802 includes Hearings before the Committee on Foreign Affairs House of Representatives May 4, 5, 6, 7, 11, 12, 13, 14, 1948 (Structure of the United Nations and the Relations of the United States to the United Nations), 80th Congress, 2d sess. (hereafter cited as Hearings, May, 4–14); and House Report No. 2291, Report of the Committee on Foreign Affairs on H.R. 6802, June 9, 1948, 80th Cong., 2d sess.

   For Department of State commentary relating in part to H.R. 6802 and generally to the overall legislative program concerning the United Nations sponsored by the Department in 1947 and 1948, see 80th Congress and the United Nations, Department of State Publication 3302 (reprinted from articles by Sheldon Z. Kaplan, Assistant to the Legal Adviser of the Department, from the Department of State Bulletin of October 26 and November 2, 1947, and September 12 and September 19, 1948).

3. The House Foreign Affairs Committee had before it an array—some 20 to 30—of House concurrent resolutions proposing drastic revision of the United Nations Charter, some with detailed schemes of amendment; the calling of a General Conference under Article 109 of the Charter to consider Charter amendment; creation of arrangements consistent with the Charter for collective security of states within the European Recovery Program; expression of U.S. willingness to waive the veto privilege in the Security Council; and the possible formation of a new international organization “under certain circumstances” (i.e., without the Soviet Union and its satellites). For text of the Charter of the United Nations, signed at San Francisco on June 26, 1945, see 59 Stat. (pt. 2) 1031, or Department of State Treaty Series (TS) No. 993; for documentation on the United Nations Conference on International Organization which met at San Francisco April 25–June 26, 1945, see Foreign Relations, 1945, vol. i, pp. 1 ff.
4. There is an informative record of oral and written statements made to the House Foreign Affairs Committee in Hearings, May 4–14, attesting to the desire for Charter revision among segments of the U.S. public.
5. For documentation regarding the European Recovery (Program (the Marshall Plan), see vol. iii, pp. 352 ff.
6. This refers to the important policy decision made earlier in the year (March) by the Administration to re-arm in the face of the development of Soviet political policy in Europe: specifically it involved proposals for the adoption of universal military training and the re-enactment of selective service legislation. This policy to take up a more realistic military posture was set forth by the Executive to the Congress in two major statements on March 17, 1948: an address by President Truman to a joint session of the Congress (entitled “Toward Securing the Peace and Preventing War”; for text see Department of State Bulletin, March 28, 1948, pp. 418 ff.); and a statement made before the Armed Services Committee of the Senate by the Secretary of State (“Relation of Military Strength to Diplomatic Action,” ibid., pp. 421 ff.). At the same time Ambassador Warren R. Austin, United States Representative at the United Nations, issued a statement tying together the military policy and the United Nations policy of the United States, saying that “The position of the United States in its discharge of its inescapable responsibilities and as a force for the solution of the problems before us by agreement, will be improved if our military posture is strengthened” (ibid., p. 418).

   Documentation on military posture as related to United States foreign policy is included in material on national security policy, scheduled for publication in part 2 of the present volume.

   For documentation relating these events to the development of this Government’s policy towards military talks then being undertaken by certain West European governments, see vol. iii, pp. 1 ff.

7. U.S. interest in the pursuit of individual and collective self-defense under the Charter of the United Nations, with particular reference to Article 51, culminating in the “Vandenberg Resolution”, Senate Resolution 239, June 11, 1948 is documented in vol. iii, pp. 1 ff. This phase of United States defense policy, under the United Nations Charter, evolved with special attention to the current efforts of certain West European governments to achieve closer military unity. The text of the “Vandenberg Resolution” reads as follows:

   “Whereas peace with justice and the defense of human rights and fundamental freedoms require international cooperation through more effective use of the United Nations: Therefore be it

   “Resolved, That the Senate reaffirm the policy of the United States to achieve international peace and security through the United Nations so that armed force shall not be used except in the common interest, and that the President be advised of the sense of the Senate that this Government, by constitutional process, should particularly pursue the following objectives within the United Nations Charter:

   (1) Voluntary agreement to remove the veto from all questions involving pacific settlements of international disputes and situations, and from the admission of new members.

   (2) Progressive development of regional and other collective arrangements for individual and collective self-defense in accordance with the purposes, principles, and provisions of the Charter.

   (3) Association of the United States, by constitutional process, with such regional and other collective arrangements as are based on continuous and effective self-help and mutual aid, and as affect its national security.

   (4) Contributing to the maintenance of peace by making clear its determination to exercise the right of individual or collective self-defense under article 51 should any armed attack occur affecting its national security.

   (5) Maximum efforts to obtain agreements to provide the United Nations with armed forces as provided by the Charter, and to obtain agreement among member nations upon universal regulation and reduction of armaments under adequate and dependable guaranty against violation.

   (6) If necessary, after adequate effort toward strengthening the United Nations, review of the Charter at an appropriate time by a General Conference called under article 109 or by the General Assembly.”

8. The policies of the United States at the United Nations in respect of the “general welfare” objectives of the Charter may be traced in general terms in the Department of State Bulletin; in the reports by the President to the Congress regarding United States Participation in the United Nations, for the appropriate year; and in Department of State Publication 3655, International Organizations in which the United States Participates 1949. Regarding human rights; see pp. 289 ff.
9. For documentation regarding U.S. policy with respect to the voting question in the Security Council, see pp. 205 ff.
10. For documentation regarding the Interim Committee, see ibid . The United States played an important role in the establishment of the Interim Committee by the General Assembly in 1947; see Foreign Relations, 1947, vol. i, pp. 166 ff.
11. The United States Representative at the United Nations (Austin) also made a statement to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs on May 5, 1948; for text, see Department of State Bulletin, May 16, 1948, pp. 626 ff. Both the Secretary’s statement and Ambassador Austin’s were published subsequently in Department of State Publication 3159, Strengthening the United Nations (Washington, Government Printing Office, 1948).