180. Telegram From the Mission at the United Nations to the Department of State1
Delga 338. Re membership. I delivered the substance of Gadel 121 to Martin. He said that probably the ad hoc committee would not meet until Monday but that in any case the matter was “out of his hands” and was in the hands of the 25 co-sponsors of the res. I told him he was the leader. I told him that we were making strenuous efforts in Taipei but that everything I had seen so far was profoundly discouraging and indicated a ChiNat veto.
I said I presumed Mr. Pearson knew what he was doing in deciding to give this all-out support to Outer Mongolia, but that it was hard for me to contemplate with equanimity the reaction which would follow from a ChiNat veto of the membership deal and the convulsion on Anglo-American relations which would inevitably result, to which no Canadian statesman could, it seemed to me, be indifferent.
He implied that the Canadian policy was adopted in response to pressure from India and that it was one in which Australia and New Zealand had joined. I am sure that I shook Martin and I observed him in very serious conversation with Mackay, the permanent Rep and Heeney, their Amb to the US after my conversation. Martin was also engaged subsequently in what appeared to be an equally serious conversation with Tsiang (China).
When I told Nutting that I anticipated very heavy weather ahead and ventured a guess as to the reaction in the House of Commons if the ChiNats vetoed membership, he confirmed my worst fears.
- Source: Department of State, Central Files, 310.2/11–2355. Confidential; Priority.↩