Office of the Historian

330/8–1954

Memorandum of Conversation, by the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs (Elbrick)

secret
[Washington,] August 19, 1954.
  • Subject:
  • Belgium’s Candidacy for a Seat in the Security Council
  • Participants:
  • Baron Silvercruys—Ambassador of Belgium
  • Mr. Georges Carlier—Counselor, Belgian Embassy
  • The Secretary
  • Mr. C. Burke Elbrick—Deputy Assistant Secretary, EUR

Baron Silvercruys said that in accordance with an arrangement between the Scandinavian countries and the Benelux countries providing for rotation of one Security Council seat, Belgium would announce its candidacy for the seat which is about to be vacated by Denmark. He said that he hoped that the United States would support its candidacy. The Secretary said jokingly that he had become somewhat wary of offering U.S. support in matters of this kind in view of certain unfortunate developments in connection with the candidacy of Prince Wan of Thailand and Van Kleffens of the Netherlands for the presidency of the General Assembly. The Belgian Ambassador said that he supposed that our UN delegation had been informed of Belgium’s desires in this respect and that, while he would not press the Secretary for an answer at this time he hoped that the response to his request would be in the affirmative. The Secretary assured the Ambassador that we would like very much to support Belgium’s candidacy for this seat. (The Secretary, however, made no final commitment.)

The Secretary then referred to the question of Communist China’s admission to the UN and said—while he wasn’t proposing this in the nature of a bargain with the Belgians in return for our support for its candidacy for the Security Council—he hoped that Belgium would [Page 581] agree with the United States position in this matter. Baron Silvercruys said that he had discussed this matter recently with Minister Spaak who, apparently, was inclined to view this subject as one which cannot be ignored much longer, and he had reminded Spaak that Belgium had, along with the majority of the members of the UN, voted to label Communist China as an aggressor. The Ambassador said he thought there were certain legal matters which would have to be cleared up before any consideration could be given to Chinese membership in the UN, such as a resolution which (in view of the fact that hostilities have ceased in the Far East) would recognize this fact and would “clear the books”.

The Secretary said that while we might view the General Assembly as a “universal” organization in which all nations might have membership, the Security Council is responsible for the peace and security of the world and it would be highly inappropriate for an aggressive power like Communist China to sit in this Council. In addition, the Secretary found it difficult to reconcile the thought of Chinese Communist membership in the UN when other powers such as Germany, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Ireland and Japan had not been admitted to membership.