330/1–2050: Telegram
The United States Representative at the United Nations (Austin) to the Secretary of State
60. 1. A number of delegations asked our views as to whether the SC should proceed during the absence of the Russians to approve the membership applications of Indonesia or of the other states which the Assembly has requested the Council to reconsider. There are indications that Palar1 may raise this question with respect to Indonesia.
2. It is clear that the SC has the right to adopt substantive resolutions in the absence of a permanent member, and it is of great importance to the prestige of the UN to establish the principle once and for all that it will not give in to the Russians’ boycott tactics. On the other hand, membership applications involve a substantive matter relating to the organization of the UN which have permanent consequences. Assuming the Russians remain away from the Council and all these applications are approved by the Council and the Assembly it seems likely that the Russians would never recognize the new members as members of the UN. They might well refuse to sit in organs where these states are present on the analogy of the Chinese Nationalist situation. It is conceivable that the Russians might leave the organization. Furthermore, in the case of the states that the Russians had previously vetoed, the Russians would have an argument which they might use effectively that this was all a trick to avoid their veto.
3. On balance, our view is that our policy should be not to support action by the SC at this time to approve membership applications during the temporary absence of the Russians.
4. We feel considerations which should guide our tactics in handling the old applications are perhaps somewhat different than those relating to the new Indonesian application. As to the old applications, the Council is obligated only to keep them under consideration. It would seem that early consideration of this question would be taken by the Russians and perhaps the public as going out of our way to take advantage of the Russian absence to overcome their opposition. This difficulty might not exist in the case of the Indonesian application. On the other hand it would be very difficult to deal with the Indonesian [Page 202] application in the Russian absence and to refuse to take similar action with regard to Italy and other nations whose applications have been pending for many years.
5. The Indonesian application will presumably be filed shortly and under the Council rules would be referred immediately to the committee on membership unless Council otherwise decides. Committee on membership would, however, not need to act on the matter until thirty-five days in advance of a regular session or fourteen days in advance of a special session. In the normal course, action might therefore be postponed for some time. From point of view of our political relation with Indonesians, it may not be desirable for the US to oppose openly consideration by the Council of their application in the Russian absence, particularly if the Indonesians have made up their minds that they are prepared to take whatever political risk is involved and are pressing for such a course of action. Furthermore, it is conceivable that if the Russians are still absent at the time of a special session in the spring, we would wish to consider the situation without previous; commitment in the light of the views of the other members.
6. We recommend, therefore, that in conversations with other delegates we should express the view that the Council should not go out of its way to raise the membership question during the absence of the Russians. We should not encourage Palar to speed up the introduction of his application or to believe that the Council would he prepared to act on it while the Russians are away. On the other hand, we should avoid if possible taking any firm position in opposition to Council consideration of his application in the normal course. Our estimate is that if we follow this line, Palar will find no enthusiasm in the Council for his plan, and the matter will simply die. If this does not occur and the matter is pressed further we could consider what to do in the light of circumstances at the time.
- Lambertus Palar, Permanent Observer of the United States of Indonesia at the United Nations.↩