IO Files: US/A/1193
Memorandum of Telephone Conversation by Mr. G. Hayden Raynor, Special Assistant to the Director of the Office of European Affairs (Hickerson)
| Participants: | Mr. Denis Allen, Counselor, British Embassy |
| Mr. Hayden Raynor, EUR, Department of State |
Mr. Allen called me this afternoon and said that the Embassy had received a telegram from the Foreign Office regarding the United [Page 245] Kingdom position on the veto which was addressed to Jebb but, of course, arrived after his departure. It was in reply to the message which Jebb sent to the Foreign Office following our veto discussion in Ottawa. The telegram indicates that the British maintain the two following reservations: (1) Doubt as to the wisdom of applying a self-denying ordinance to Chapter VI decisions or recommendations, (2) Doubt as, to the wisdom of a self-denying ordinance being applied to the question of whether or not a matter is procedural or non-procedural.
Subject to the two reservations enumerated above, the British see some advantages in the proposals going forward to the Security Council in the nature of some kind of general guide for the conduct of the Council. However, the British will find it difficult to vote favorably on this matter as it now stands in the form of a recommendation to the Security Council. They feel that on this matter constitutional amendments are involved and that the direct recommendation method would be a dubious expedient. The telegram continued, however, with the statement that the British might be able to support these proposals if the form in which they are put up was revised so that it read along the line of urging the Security Council to consider how far it would in practice be practicable to follow the procedures suggested. The telegram concluded with an expression that the Foreign Office believes that the practicable results achieved in any event will be small but that there may be some credit to be attained by supporting these veto proposals in some way, and it may also have the result of further stressing Russian intransigence.
Mr. Allen said that if we wanted to discuss this matter further with him before the Delegation left he would be at our disposal. I told him that we might possibly want to do so after our experts on the veto had reviewed this information, but that I thought it likely that any further or detailed discussions could await the arrival of both Delegations in Paris.