190. Telegram From the Mission at the United Nations to the Department of State1
Delga 390. For Secretary and Wilcox. Re membership. Lodge asked Belaunde (Peru) what he had decided regarding suggestion of yesterday that he put in a motion providing for the admission of 17 and for reference of the application of Outer Mongolia to the Council’s Committee on Admission of New Members.
Belaunde said he would not do this and he gave the following reasons. The Good Offices Committee at its first meeting decided that there should be no discrimination among any of the applications. The Committee also decided that it should make no proposals, and that since the East had already made a proposal, all proposals should come from the Western powers. He also added that the Good Offices committee had been elected by 60 members and that it would therefore be difficult for him to submit a proposal. He asked Lodge to “tell Dulles I am deeply sorry.”
[Page 411]Lodge met with Nutting at latter’s request at noon today. Nutting asked for our reactions to UK introduction in SC of the following proposal:
[Here follows a draft resolution recommending that all applicants be admitted to the United Nations, except Korea, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Vietnam, and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.]
Nutting and Dixon explained that the rationale for the above proposal was that it would be much more difficult for the Chinese to veto a package of 18 because there are so many states included which they and we want in. Secondly, it would have the effect of getting all 18 in if the Chinese were willing to forebear the use of the veto. Dixon explained that they envisaged a procedure whereby the Chinese would seek to amend the above resolution to exclude Outer Mongolia and/or to put it in category of divided states, that this amendment would be defeated, and then the Chinese would be faced with either acquiescing in the 18 or vetoing the entire 18— something which, the UK believes, the Chinese would find more difficult to do than to veto Outer Mongolia separately. Dixon envisaged exploring this matter both with the Canadians and the Belgians if we are agreeable.
Lodge put to Nutting the idea of a 17 nation proposal plus referral of the application of Outer Mongolia to the Security Council’s Committee on admission of new members.
Nutting said “we absolutely cannot do it.” Both he and Dixon alluded to Ceylonese pressure, Canadian pressure in favor of 18, and the fact that supporting such a 17 nation proposal would mean putting the UK in the position of voting in favor of Albania while excluding Outer Mongolia—something which public opinion in the UK would not understand.
Lodge said his offhand personal reaction to UK proposal was negative. He said we should proceed with the proposal for 17 with view to focusing failure for a solution on the Russians. If we proceed with the UK proposal, it would mean that blame would be directed to Chinese Nationalists. Lodge said that it would be better to go through the ad hoc and not have the SC consider the membership question at all, rather than proceed with a proposal for 18.
Dixon said you cannot get away without SC consideration of the membership question and that, in his view, it was a question of either the UK putting in a proposal for the 18 or being confronted with a proposal on the 18 put in by the Soviets. Nutting added you cannot smother the SC exercise and there is no hope of having membership question wither away. Moreover, he said our 17 nation proposal would not get seven votes because several SC members [Page 412] were already committed to 18 and a proposal for 18 was bound to be introduced. Dixon said it should be less difficult to support a proposal on the 18 made by the UK than a proposal made by the Soviets.
Lodge said this was his personal reaction and that he would refer the UK proposal to Washington immediately. In the meantime, he asked UK not to go ahead on this matter until we had received word from the State Department. Both Nutting and Dixon agreed that they would hold off until they had heard from us.
It was agreed that we would not oppose a move in the ad hoc committee to take up membership next.
- Source: Department of State, Central Files, 310.2/11–3055. Secret; Priority.↩