Foreign Relations of the United States, 1951, The United Nations; The Western Hemisphere, Volume II

CFM Files. Lot M 88. Box 159

Minutes of Bipartite Conversation, Paris, November 4, 1951

Paris, November 4, 1951

secret
NoVB M–l

Participants:	Secretary Acheson
	Ambassador Bruce1
	Mr. Eden
	British Ambassador to France, Sir Oliver Harvey

[Here follows discussion of other subjects.]

3. I raised the question of Chinese Representation in the United Nations. It appeared that Mr. Eden was not presently familiar with this situation. Mr. Eden said that he thought we should maintain the moratorium agreement. He was under the impression that this was a UN agreement and that by maintaining it no action was required in the General Assembly. It was explained to him that this was merely a United States-United Kingdom understanding to the effect that we would jointly act to postpone decisions in regard to Chinese representation during the pendency of the Korean action and not involve ourselves in the merits of the question.

I then explained to him our proposals (a) and (b) and also the possibility of the third action, which was to allow the Russians to take the initiative and then move to end the debate. I explained why our proposals were more advantageous to the Western position, because they settled the question for the duration of the present Assembly.

Mr. Eden said that in the light of what I had presented to him, he would be in favor of something along the lines of our proposal (b) and also he raised the issue of the duration. I suggested the duration should be the present meeting in Paris. He asked that our officers should get in touch with Mr. Shuckburgh,² who would work this out.

I strongly suggest that we do not overplay our hand on this matter of the language of alternative (b) and I would not try to press the duration question upon the present meeting in Paris.

4. The next matter raised was Mr. Eden’s suggestion that it would be most helpful to him to have some three-power discussions. He handed me the attached agenda for items for such discussions. He pointed out that some of the items would have been passed before the talks occurred but that a great deal of time could be wasted on general discussions; however, it was clear that he would like to be brought up to date on the views of Mr. Schuman and me on a great many of these matters. It was decided that we would gladly cooperate in arranging a meeting with Mr. Schuman, which might take place sometime on Tuesday or as soon thereafter as convenient.

I said that I understood that it had been arranged that we would meet at three o’clock Monday afternoon, which, he said, was entirely agreeable to him.³

1. David K. E. Bruce, United States Ambassador to France.
2. Charles A. E. Shuckburgh, Private Secretary to British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Eden.
3. In reporting briefly to the United States Delegation on November 5 on his meeting with Eden, Acheson “warned whoever was to deal with the United Kingdom on this [Chinese representation issue] not to over-trade. It appeared that they were extremely ill-informed as to the nature of the moratorium agreement, and other aspects of the problem. Since they would not accept alternative B, we must not over-push them on it. Ambassador Gross, Mr. Fisher, and Mr. Sandifer were to work on this with the UK. It was important to note that the UK were not at all worried about the matter. Thus if we did not make it complicated, the UK would accept our position.” (Minutes of 4th meeting of the U.S. Delegation, IO Files, Doc. US/A/M (Chr)/191)