371. Telegram From the Delegation to the Conference on the Law of the Sea to the Department of State1
1277. Law of Sea. For the Secretary. First reaction to events in conference re territorial sea April 25 among delegations and press is that US has scored substantial moral victory in obtaining greater measure [Page 706] of support for its compromise than was received for any other proposal.2
Western Europeans are jubilant, particularly British, French, Swedes and Dutch and there is general feeling that NATO solidarity has been maintained and strengthened as result of our exercise.
Even with Iceland, as separately reported,3 formerly existing resentment has been substantially moderated by our efforts help work out their problems here though they have consistently voted against our proposal. We were of course badly handicapped by solid Arab support twelve miles on Gulf of Aqaba and failure Congress remove tariff on foreign copper which lost Chile vote and provisions in constitutions certain Latin American countries.
On other hand, result of voting has been extremely sharp setback for Soviets, who cleverly attempted to remain in background and utilize nationalist sentiment and economic aspirations of new, underdeveloped countries in order to produce a triumph for twelve-mile theorists. Sharp rebuff to Soviet proposal indicates collapse of this strategy. It is also clear that conference has shown up extravagance of 200-mile CEP claims and greatly weakened future positions of these states. [2 sentences (11 lines of source text) not declassified]
One key factor in failure of our proposal to gain two-thirds majority was of course attitude of Canada. Canadian Del badly split and very unhappy.
We have refrained from suggesting that Department make representations to Ottawa in last few days because we did not think this would serve any useful purpose. Nevertheless Dept may wish at some appropriate time to inform Canadians that delegation, while appreciating that Canadians can act as they choose on any issue, after our offering complete cooperation on first proposal has been shocked by, first, Canadian action in moving its proposal without any prior consultation with us even though we had consulted most closely with them on our own developing strategy; second, by repeated, thinly veiled gibes at United States by Drew, though on our part we carefully refrained from any such innuendo or denunciation and constantly maintained friendly and constructive attitude which has paid dividends even with those voting against US; [28 words not declassified].
[Page 707]We cannot avoid a certain satisfaction that, with all of Drew’s maneuvering, the Canadian proposal on a contiguous fishing zone garnered fewer votes in plenary than it had in Committee One. This is generally interpreted as something of a setback for the Canadians and they fully realize it. [1 sentence (8 words of source text) not declassified]
Our inability to secure a two-thirds vote was due in last analysis to the effectiveness of strong bloc pressures on which I commented in my tel 1209.4 Though we have no bloc ourselves, our general prestige is great enough to prevail over efforts of only one or two blocs. However, when preponderant members of three blocs—Afro-Asians, Latin Americans, and Soviet—form a tight alliance, and in view Israeli stand we have no negotiability the best we have been able to do is to obtain a standoff by mobilizing our friends in Western Europe and our especially close allies in Latin American and Afro-Asian areas.
As I stated in my 1209 I hope Department will be giving very serious consideration to methods for counteracting bloc pressures and the increasing trend toward bloc solidarity.
In this connection, in cases where political or economic interest unites US with Western Europeans, it will be important to induce them to get down into the arena and to fight hard instead of throwing up their hands in horror over “cynical” procedural maneuvers of the opposition and limiting their participation, after much soul-searching and vacillating to raising their hands in the vote.
This is what happened in Committee One, and as a result there were times when it appeared that the United States was carrying on a one-man campaign against a flood of opposition.
In fairness, I must except from this comment the British, French and Portuguese, the Turks, the Italians and Swedes who were very active in our support, even though in the special circumstances of this conference support by the British, French, and Italians was sometimes more of a liability than an asset due to antipathy newly created nations and fishing provisions in our proposal in WE favor.
In the light of all the foregoing I personally feel heartened by the result of the voting. We obtained forty-five votes for our proposal; we might have obtained fifty if at the last moment threatening tactics bloc pressure had not forced Afghanistan and Nepal to abstain instead of voting for US; [33 words (4 lines of source text) not declassified] if Panama had maintained attitude it finally took in Committee One and if Philippines or Korea had cooperated and Chile had not reneged because of copper tariff. With these eight votes we could have won two-thirds majority. However I believe that on balance we have made about as good a showing as possible.
[Page 708]Finally, as the conference is likely to provide for a resumption of consideration of the territorial sea problem in the General Assembly and perhaps at a second conference, I would emphasize that we must not relax our educational efforts through our embassies and through the Department in Washington.
In recent weeks I have increasingly recognized both the value of the work we have done in the field and the crying and urgent need for very much more of this preparatory type of work as distinct from last minute needling.
As I understand it we have been discussing the major law of the sea problems with other countries in preparation for this conference for over a year; and yet it is utterly amazing to discover that a very high proportion of the individual delegates sent here even today have only the foggiest notion of the implications of what they are doing. Many of delegates here have never personally seen our slides or at least not heard presentation in own language and were not personally familiar with the problems inasmuch as many of them are ambassadors from neighboring countries.
We should I think do more to close the gap in information and thinking not only between the Department and other foreign offices but between ourselves and the men who actually do the voting in the meeting, where the results count.
Greatly appreciate strong and timely Department support and active work of embassies.
- Source: Department of State, Central Files, 399.731/4–2658. Confidential; Priority.↩
- In the plenary sessions on April 25, no proposal on Article 3 received the two-thirds majority necessary for adoption, although the U.S. proposal came closest, losing by 45–33–7. For a summary of the proceedings and the results of the roll-call votes on each proposal, see U.N. doc. 1/CONF.13/38, pp. 35–47.↩
- Not found.↩
- Document 369.↩