Trygve Lie 1946–1953 9780231888905

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Public Papers of the Secretaries-General of the United Nations VOLUME I

T R Y G V E LIE 1946-1953

Public Papers of the Secretaries-General of the United Nations VOLUME

I

TRYGVE LIE 1946-1953

Selected and Edited with Commentary by

A N D R E W W. C O R D I E R AND

WILDER

COLUMBIA

FOOTE

UNIVERSITY 1969

NEW

YORK

AND

LONDON

PRESS

ANDREW W. CORDIER is Acting President of Columbia University and has served as Dean of the School of International Affairs at Columbia since 1962. From the beginning of the United Nations until 1962 Dr. Cordier was Executive Assistant to the Secretary-General with the rank of UnderSecretary. During the entire period he also had the top Secretariat responsibility for General Assembly affairs. WILDER FOOTE served in the United Nations Secretariat from its early days until December 1960 as Director of Press and Publications and acted as spokesman to the press for Secretaries-General Trygve Lie and Dag Hammarskjôld. He is currently a Research Associate in the School of International Affairs, Columbia University.

Copyright © 1969 Columbia University Press Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number: 68-8873 Printed in the United States of America

Editors' Introductory

Note to the Series

of the Secretary-General in the political life and constitutional development of the United Nations since 1945 has far exceeded the expectations of those who wrote the Charter. This has enhanced the historical significance of the public papers of each of the SecretariesGeneral. These include many texts that are valuable and often indispensable as source materials in study of the Organization as a whole, of the office of Secretary-General in particular, and of the place of both in world affairs. It is important that such papers be readily available to scholars and specialists in international affairs. In practice their accessibility has been severely limited by the sheer volume and diversity of United Nations records of its proceedings and activities. Some of the public papers of the Secretaries-General are included in the official documentation and some are not. In the former category are periodic and special reports to United Nations organs, proposals and statements at meetings of the General Assembly, the Security Council, the other councils, committees and commissions, and certain communications to Governments. Not included in the official records are various other communications to governments, the Secretary-General's addresses outside the United Nations, statements to the press, press conference transcripts, radio and television broadcasts, contributions to magazines and books. Most of the texts in this second category were issued as press releases, none as official documents. More or less comprehensive collections of the official documents are maintained by several hundred depository libraries designated by the United Nations and located in most of the countries of the world. After more than twenty years it is not surprising that the volume of this documentation is immense. The record of what successive SecretariesGeneral have spoken or written in the official proceedings is widely dispersed throughout a great mass of records. Furthermore, it is necessary to go to the press releases for the public papers in the second category described above. The Dag Hammarskjôld Library at UN Headquarters

THE ROLE

vi

Editors' Introductory

Note to the Series

maintains a comprehensive collection of press releases but it has not been the practice to include them in the deposit of official documentation in the depository libraries. Yet the press releases are usually the only source of a very important part of the public record—the SecretaryGeneral's speeches to other groups and organizations and his press statements and press conferences. Successive Secretaries-General have found these to be useful vehicles from time to time for significant political statements which they preferred to make in less formal circumstances than a Council or Assembly meeting or in an official communication. Frequently they are more enlightening and less inhibited than their official papers. The projected series of volumes of selected public papers of the Secretarics-General published by the Columbia University Press is intended to include those texts that are essential or most likely to be valuable to historical research. These have been assembled from official, semi-official, and non-official sources. The texts selected for the printed series are reproduced in full except where otherwise indicated. Commentary recalling the contemporary context and giving other background for the texts is provided whenever this seems useful. Original sources are given in unnumbered notes on the opening page of each text. Where these exist in typescript only they are included in the full collections at Columbia University and the Dag Hammarskjold Library. These collections are open to scholars wishing to consult them. It should also be explained that the official records of the United Nations include many reports issued in the name of the Secretary-General that may more correctly be classified with the records of the organs requesting them. Such reports are factual accounts of developments or programs without personal commitments of policy or principle by the Secretary-General. There are a few border-line cases, but in general, reports of this nature have not been considered as belonging with the public papers of the Secretaries-General.

Acknowledgments to go to several sources in order to assemble the collection of Trygve Lie's public papers from which the texts included in this volume were selected. Mr. Lie himself arranged to make available his personal collection of papers relating to his service as Secretary-General which were deposited with the Norwegian Foreign Office. We wish to express our great appreciation for his help and for the friendly cooperation of the Foreign Office in making copies of a number of texts, especially speeches, articles, and press conference transcripts of the earlier years, that had not been issued as press releases. The unfailing collaboration of the Dag Hammarskjold Library at UN Headquarters, as well as the assistance of various individual officers of the Secretariat, have been generously provided and we are most grateful to them. We are glad that in the process of assisting us to assemble these papers the UN Library was enabled to fill out its own collection. Miss Alice Smith of the staff of the School of International Affairs and a former Secretariat staff member served as research assistant for the project with ability and devoted care. She tracked down all the texts, supervised the making of copies, organized the files, checked the manuscript and references, read proof, and in many other ways made herself indispensable. Finally, the editors wish to record their thanks to Professor Leland Goodrich, James T. Shotwell Professor of International Relations, and to Miss Ruth Russell, research associate, of the School of International Affairs of Columbia University, who read the manuscript and made many suggestions of value in the final editing. I T WAS NECESSARY

Contents Editors' Introductory Note to the Series Introduction to the Public Papers of Trygve Lie

v 1

1945 At the Charter Conference, San Francisco—Speech in the Opening Debate, May 2

25

1946 Before the First Assembly as Norway's Representative, London, January 16 Acceptance Speech as Secretary-General before the First Assembly, London, February 2 From Opening Speech to the Economic and Social Council, New York, May 25 Political Initiatives of the Secretary-General, April to September 1946 1. Legal Memorandum on Question Security Council Agenda, April of16 Retaining Iranian Case on 2. Support for Universality of Membership—Statement in the Security Council, August 28 3. Implied Powers Under Article 99—Statement in the Security Council, September 20 Introduction to the First Annual Report, June 26 Supplementary Oral Report before the General Assembly, Flushing, N.Y., October 24 Closing Remarks before the 1946 General Assembly, December 15 1947 Legal Opinion on Security Council's Powers in the Case of the Free Territory of Trieste—Statement in the Security Council, January 10 Opening Statement at First Meeting of the Trusteeship Council, Lake Success, N.Y., March 26 European Economic Recovery and the United Nations—From a Message to the International Chamber of Commerce at Montreux, Switzerland, June 2 Introduction to the Second Annual Report, July 4

29 33 36 39 39 44 46 48 56 68

71 74

80 83

X

Contents

Statement before the Second General Assembly at Conclusion of the General Debate, Flushing, N.Y., September 23 Statement before the Second General Assembly on Plan and Financing of Permanent Headquarters, Flushing, N.Y., November 20 From Statement before the General Assembly at the Conclusion of Its Second Session, Flushing, N.Y., November 29

88 94 96

1948 From Message on the Signing of the Havana Charter for an International Trade Organization, March 24 100 Support of the Partition Plan for Palestine, January to May 1948 105 1. Opening Statement at the First Meeting of the United Nations Palestine Commission, Lake Success, N.Y., January 9 108 2. Relations between the United Nations Palestine Commission and the Security Council—from Working Paper Prepared by the Secretariat for the Commission, February 3 110 3. Text of Letter to the Permanent Members of the Security Council, May 16 116 United Nations vs. Irreconcilable Conflict 1. The Hyde Park Address, April 12 2. The New York Times Article, May 9 Call for a United Nations Guard Force—Address at Harvard University Commencement Exercises, June 10 Introduction to the Third Annual Report, July 5 Legal Basis for Dispatch of 50 UN Guards to Palestine—Statement on Behalf of the Secretary-General in the Security Council, July 7 The Assassination of Count Folke Bernadotte—Statement before the General Assembly, Paris, September 21 A United Nations Guard—Report of the Secretary-General to the General Assembly, September 28 Statements Relating to the Berlin Crisis, 1948-1949 1. Joint Communication From Assembly President Herbert V. Evatt and UN Secretary-General Trygve Lie, Addressed to Delegations of Four Powers Signatory to Moscow Agreements, November 13, 1948 2. From Concluding Address before General Assembly at End of Its Third Session, Flushing, N.Y., May 18, 1949 1949 Retreat from Guard Force to Field Service, April-October 1949 1. Statement before the General Assembly, April 29

118 118 123 131 136 158 163 166 178

180 182 186 187

Contents 2. Revised Proposal for Establishment of a United Nations Field Service and Field Reserve Panel—Memorandum by the Secretary-General, June 16 3. Statement on the United Nations Field Service before the Ad Hoc Political Committee, October 25 Silent Prayer or Meditation—Statement at Press Conference, Lake Success, N.Y., May 27 Needs for More UN Economic Development Projects—From an Address at the University of Chattanooga, Tennessee, June 6 "If We Can Keep on for 50 Years. . . ." Address at 40th Annual Convention of Rotary International, New York, June 14 Extent of Immunities of United Nations Personnel—Statements at Press Conference, Lake Success, N.Y., June 24 Introduction to the Fourth Annual Report, July 7 Reparation for Injuries Incurred in the Service of the United Nations— Report of the Secretary-General, August 23 On the Political Role of the Secretary-General—From Address at Dinner Given in Trygve Lie's Honor by American Association for the United Nations, New York, September 29 "Not a Candidate for Reappointment"—Statements at Press Conference, December 16 "The Charter"—Chapter I of Peace on Earth, New York, 1949

xi

189 193 195 197 201 208 212 227

236 238 239

1950 "UN vi. Mass Destruction"—Article in Scientific American, January, 1950 The Representation of China 1. Letter dated March 8, 1950 addressed to the President of the Security Council from the Secretary-General, and Text of Memorandum on the Legal Aspects of the Problem of Representation in the United Nations 2. Statement to the Press on the Question of the Representation of China, March 10 "A Twenty-Year Program" for Peace 1. Address at Triennial Dinner of B'nai B'rith, Washington, D.C., March 21 2. Exchange of Letters with Albert Einstein 3. Comments to the Press before Departure for Europe, Lake Success, N.Y., April 14, 21 4. Announcement of Decision to Go to Moscow, Paris, May 3 5. UN Agency Heads Join in Statement, Paris, May 4

252 259

260 266 268 270 278 279 280 281

xii

Contents 6. Address at World Health Assembly, Geneva, May 8

283

7. From Statement at WHO Cornerstone Ceremony, Geneva, May 9

287

8. Press Conference Comment, Geneva, May 9

288

9. Statement and Comments at Press Conference, Moscow, May 17

289

10. Statement on Leaving Europe for UN Headquarters, London, May 24 292 11. Response to UN Staff Welcome on Return to Lake Success, May 25 293 12. Comments at Press Conference, Lake Success, N.Y., May 26

294

13. Letter of Transmittal to Governments and Text of "Memorandum of Points for Consideration in the Development of a TwentyYear Program for Achieving Peace Through the United Nations," June 6 296 14. Further Comments at Press Conference, Lake Success, N.Y., June 8 15. From an Open Letter from the Secretary-General, June 25 16. Reflections about His Peace Mission Four Years Later Opening Statement at First UN Technical Assistance Conference, Lake Success, N.Y., June 12 Statement in Security Council on Invasion of South Korea, Lake Success, N.Y., June 25 "United, or Not?" Transcript of Radio-Press Conference on the Korean Crisis and Twenty-Year Peace Program, Lake Success, N.Y., June 26

303 306 307 309 313

315

Introduction to the Fifth Annual Report, July 12

323

Comments at Press Conference, Lake Success, N.Y., July 14

336

Comments at Press Conference, Lake Success, N.Y., August 7

341

Address: A Report on the United Nations, Chicago, Illinois, September 8

346

United Nations Day Speech in the General Assembly, Flushing, N.Y., October 24 355 Acceptance Speech on Extension of His Term of Office, Plenary Meeting of the General Assembly, Flushing, N.Y., November 1 358 Statement before the General Assembly on the Twenty-Year Peace Program, Flushing, N.Y., November 17 362 Reply to U.S.S.R. Charge on Twenty-Year Peace Program in General Assembly Debate, Flushing, N.Y., November 20 376

Contents

xiii

1951 Opening Remarks to the New Disarmament Committee of Twelve, Lake Success, N.Y., February 14 377 Press Conference Comments on Korea, Lake Success, N.Y., February 16

380

From Address at the University of Quito, Ecuador, February 28

383

Press Conference Statement on Korea, Lake Success, N.Y., April 6

385

Speech and Press Conference Comments, Belgrade, Yugoslavia, April 14 and 15

387

A New Effort to Arrange a Cease-Fire in Korea

393

1. From a Speech in Ottawa, Canada, June 1, 1951

394

2. Statement as Telephoned from Oslo to UN Headquarters, June 24, 1951

396

3. Replies to Questions on Developments Relating to a Cease-Fire in Korea, June 28, 1951 396 The UN Family of Agencies and World Order—From Address at UNESCO General Conference, June 18 398 Introduction to the Sixth Annual Report, September 20

400

Progress Report to the General Assembly on Development of a TwentyYear Program for Achieving Peace, October 418 Speech on the Sixth General Assembly Session Over Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish Radio Systems, Oslo, Norway, December 26 439 1952 Press Conference Comments at Conclusion of Paris Meetings of the Sixth Assembly, Paris, February 8 445 Television Interview with UN Correspondents, United Nations, N.Y., March 18 448 Problems of Adjustment in Economic Development—From an Address to the Industrial Council at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, N.Y., May 17 456 "Equality Before the Law"—From Commencement Address at University of Nebraska, Lincoln, June 2 459 Introduction to the Seventh Annual Report, September 30

461

Summary of Proposals for a United Nations Volunteer Reserve, October

472

Statement at Inaugural Meeting of the General Assembly in the Newly Completed Permanent Headquarters, October 14 477

xiv

Contents

Announcement of Resignation in the General Assembly, November 10 483 Statement upon the Death of Abraham H. Feller, November 13

485

1953 The Communist Scare in America and the UN Secretariat

487

1. Statement on Personnel Policy before the General Assembly, United Nations, N.Y., March 10 488 2. Additional Statement in the General Assembly at End of Debate On Personnel Policy, United Nations, N.Y., April 1 505 Statement to the Press on Nomination by the Security Council of Dag Hammarskjöld, United Nations, N.Y., March 31 510 Final Statement before the General Assembly, April 7

511

Farewell Address Over UN Radio, United Nations, N.Y., April 26

516

From Farewell Speech to the Staff, United Nations, N.Y., May 1

521

Press Statement on Achievement of an Armistice in Korea, Oslo, July 27

522

Index

523

Public Papers of the Secretaries-General of the United Nations VOLUME I

T R Y G V E LIE 1946-1953

Introduction

to

the Public Papers of Trygve

Lie

have thought it useful to introduce the Public Papers of Trygve Lie with a brief account of the background and of the principal political and constitutional developments during his term as SecretaryGeneral. They witnessed and participated in these developments at first hand as members of the small group in the Secretariat who were his closest collaborators. As the following pages will make evident, they believe that the first Secretary-General made significant contributions to the development of international organization and of his Office and to the influence of both in international affairs. The correctness of those of his political initiatives that were rebuffed and of stands that failed at the time has more often than not been confirmed by the subsequent course of events. When he ended his term the stature and public prestige of his Office were well established. This provided leverage and scope for further development by his successor. T H E EDITORS

I The precedents of Geneva and the legislative history of the Charter did not, in some important respects, give clear guidance in the conduct of his Office to Trygve Lie. It is well to begin by recalling this background before proceeding to review the pioneering course pursued by the first Secretary-General of the United Nations. From the League of Nations came the concept of the international civil servant, responsible only to the international organization as a whole, not to any Government or any other external authority. Before 1919 international secretariats had consisted of seconded national officials. Sir Eric Drummond, the first Secretary-General of the League, came to his post from the British civil service. It was mainly due to him that principles which governed the national career civil servant in his relationship to his Government were successfully translated for the first time to the international plane. In Drummond's view, the SecretaryGeneral himself was also subject to restraints traditional to the civil service under the British constitutional system. Even the highest civil

2

Introduction

to Papers of Trygve Lie

servant did not have responsibility for making policy or for its public advocacy. That responsibility was reserved for Ministers. In the international application this meant it was reserved for representatives of Governments. In the League the Secretary-General observed strictly these limitations. Though he was often a trusted private consultant to Governments, he avoided public stands on political questions. He did not participate in debates on such issues in the League Council and Assembly. Nor did he act as public spokesman to Governments or peoples on behalf of the principles of the Covenant or of the League as an international institution. Albert Thomas, Sir Eric Drummond's contemporary at Geneva, interpreted his position as the first Director-General of the International Labour Organisation in more activist terms, insisting upon and exercising wide powers of initiative and leadership. Differences in personal temperament and background were partly responsible. Thomas came to his office from French political life, not the civil service. He had been a leading member of the Socialist Party and a cabinet minister. The structure and functions of the ILO, however, were so different from the League's that Thomas's example could well be viewed as not relevant for the first Secretary-General of the United Nations. In the main the provisions of the Charter on the Secretary-General simply gave constitutional sanction to traditions and practices established in the League of Nations. He was to be the chief international civil servant in the Drummond sense, with exclusively international responsibilities which all Member Governments undertook to respect (Art. 100). He was the only elected official of the Secretariat. The power to appoint all the others was reserved to him (Art. 101). He was to be the chief administrative officer of the Organization (Art. 97), to act in his capacity as Secretary-General in all meetings of the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council, and Trusteeship Council, to "perform such other functions as are entrusted to him by these organs," and to make an annual report to the General Assembly on the work of the Organization (Art. 98). These provisions, in themselves, did not necessarily lead beyond the League experience. Article 99, by introducing the concept of responsibility for independent political initiative, was a new departure. How extensive a departure it was intended to be the history of its consideration and eventual inclusion in the Charter did not establish. The record both before and at

Introduction

to Papers of Trygve

Lie

3

Dumbarton Oaks and San Francisco was amazingly thin, and in some respects ambiguous. In fact the provisions on the Secretariat in the Charter were among those given the least thought and attention, partly, no doubt, because they proved to be generally noncontroversial but mainly because they were considered of secondary importance compared to other questions. Under Article 99 "The Secretary-General may bring to the attention of the Security Council any matter which in his opinion may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security." This is authority to perform a specific act. Its principal origin lay in the memory of delays that had occurred in convening the League Council in emergencies because only Governments could bring before it questions that threatened peace, and in some instances Governments had hesitated under pressure from one or another of the League's Great Powers. Before Dumbarton Oaks, planners for international organization in the American, British, and Chinese Governments had all favored a provision along the lines of Article 99 as a useful remedy for this defect in League procedures. In the United States State Department, early drafts for a Charter in 1943 provided that the Secretary-General should also serve as permanent nonvoting chairman of the Security Council. In December 1943 President Roosevelt suggested making provision in the American plan for a "Head" of the organization with responsibility for political functions. He would serve as a permanent nonvoting chairman of the Security Council or of the General Assembly or of both and exercise as well the function envisaged for the Secretary-General in Article 99. There would, in addition, be a Secretary-General or Director-General in charge of administration. The "Head" or "President" would be a statesman of world repute, capable of acting as a "moderator"—as Roosevelt termed it—of differences between the Powers and of representing the general interest to Governments and peoples. This idea percolated into public discussion in Washington early in 1944, with Roosevelt himself and Winston Churchill favorites for such a position. However, the State Department planners found difficulties with the concept and Roosevelt had decided to abandon it before the United States circulated its tentative proposals for the Charter to the U.S.S.R., United Kingdom, and China just prior to Dumbarton Oaks. In the process the United States neglected to restore to the functions of the Secretary-General proposed in its draft the responsibility later expressed in Article 99. However, both the British and Chinese delegations at Dum-

4

Introduction to Papers of Trygve Lie

barton Oaks suggested its inclusion, and it was accepted there by the U.S.S.R. as well as by the United States. The American oversight suggests that the United States Government, at that time at least, did not attach any great significance to Article 99. At the San Francisco conference two proposals to broaden the Secretary-General's authority under Article 99 were rejected. One would have empowered him to place before the General Assembly, as well as the Security Council, any matter which might endanger peace. The other proposal would have given him the right to bring before the Council any violation of the principles of the Charter. Aside from the rejection of these proposals, the consideration of Article 99 at San Francisco was both brief and vague, with hardly any examination of the possible wider consequences which might flow from it for the political role of the Secretary-General. The chairman of the United States delegation reported to President Truman that Article 99 conferred "an important political power . . . which had not been enjoyed by the Secretary-General of the League of Nations. The granting of this power considerably modified the concept of a Secretary-General as being primarily the chief administrative officer of the Organization." 1 This understated, by implication, the value of Drummond's behind-the-scenes political role in the League as a consultant to delegates. In other respects it was probably a fair reflection of the limited attention that most delegations at the San Francisco conference gave to the matter.

n To this legislative record on the Charter's provisions relating to his office Trygve Lie could add for his guidance both the formal recommendations of the Preparatory Commission which met in London in the autumn of 1945 and the simultaneous informal discussion among the delegates of desirable personalities to fill the office. The Preparatory Commission thought that the aims and activities of the General Assembly, the Security Council, and the other councils "will, no doubt, be represented before the public primarily by the Chairmen of these organs." However, it added: "The Secretary-General, more than anyone else, will stand for the United Nations as a whole." 2 1 Report to the President, June 26, 1945, Department of State, Publication 2349, Conference Series 71, page 148. 2 Report of the United Nations Preparatory Commission, December 23, 1945, H.M. Stationery Office, London, 1946.

Introduction to Papers of Trygve Lie

5

This suggested that there would be five spokesmen for the general interest in the United Nations among whom the Secretary-General might be considered as having a somewhat wider mandate than the presiding officers of the General Assembly, Security Council, Trusteeship Council, and Economic and Social Council. As to other functions with political significance the Preparatory Commission reported as follows: "The Secretary-General may have an important role to play as a mediator and as an informal adviser of many Governments, and will undoubtedly be called upon, from time to time, in the exercise of his administrative duties, to take decisions which may justly be called political. Under Article 99 of the Charter, moreover, he has been given a quite special right which goes beyond any power previously accorded to the head of an international organization. . . . It is impossible to foresee how this Article will be applied; but the responsibility it confers upon the Secretary-General will require the exercise of the highest qualities of political judgment, tact, and integrity." 3 In the same report the Preparatory Commission recommended rules of procedure for the Security Council which made no provision for the Secretary-General's participation in debate except for the invocation of Article 99. In the General Assembly the Preparatory Commission's proposed rules would authorize the Secretary-General to include in the provisional agenda "all items" which he "deems it necessary to put before the General Assembly." He could participate in debate, however, only "upon invitation of the President." 4 The most prominent names for Secretary-General advanced at London in informal discussion among delegates meeting at the Preparatory Commission and during the early days of the first Assembly were those of General Eisenhower and Anthony Eden. Eisenhower was the British favorite, Eden was Trygve Lie's choice, as he was of Field Marshal Smuts, Paul-Boncour of France, and Peter Fraser of New Zealand. Eisenhower and Eden came fairly close to Roosevelt's conception of a world-famous "moderator" to head the Organization. Both were ruled out primarily because majority opinion, after some hesitation, settled on the principle that the Secretary-General should not be a national of one of the Great Powers. In the League he had been. In Eisenhower's case an additional consideration was the decision to locate the headquarters of the United Nations in the United States. In Eden's case the Labour Government was unsympathetic. Later Eden wrote in his memoirs, "I took no step to 3 Ibid.

* Ibid.

6

Introduction

to Papers

of Trygve

Lie

promote my candidature but if this offer had been made to me it could hardly have been refused." 5 It had been informally agreed for some time that the President of the General Assembly should be chosen from the smaller countries, and various names had been suggested. Once this understanding was finally accepted as applying also to the office of Secretary-General, the lists of possibilities under discussion for one office or another tended to overlap. Many names were considered for both. Trygve Lie thought the United States was interested in him only as a candidate for President of the General Assembly. Only after he had been defeated for that office by Paul-Henri Spaak did he learn that he was also on the United States list for Secretary-General, though Lester B. Pearson, then Ambassador of Canada to the United States, was the American first choice. Lie was a natural American second choice after the Soviet Union indicated it could not agree to Pearson, for the Soviet Union had joined the United States in supporting Lie for Assembly President and the veto applied in the selection of a Secretary-General. As it turned out, the two men whose prior experience and interests most closely resembled those of Albert Thomas of the ILO were chosen for Assembly President and Secretary-General. Spaak and Lie were leading figures of the Socialist parties in Belgium and Norway, respectively, and both had devoted their careers to politics. However, career civil servants had also been in the running for Secretary-General. Lester Pearson later entered politics and became Canada's Foreign Minister, then leader of the Liberal Party and Prime Minister. But at the time he was first choice of the United States for Secretary-General he was a career foreign service officer who had been counselor of embassy at Washington during most of the war and had only recently been named Ambassador. A popular candidate among many Western Europeans was Eelco van Kleffens of the Netherlands, then Foreign Minister, but a career man in the Dutch Foreign Office. Before nationals of the United Nations' "Big Five" were ruled out there was talk of Gladwyn Jebb, then a British Foreign Service officer on loan as Executive Secretary of the Preparatory Commission, and of Henri Bonnet, of France, who served the League of Nations as an international civil servant under Drummond and after 1930 was director of its Institute of Intellectual Cooperation. Viewed as a whole, the weight of the evidence in the record was cer5

The Reckoning;

The Memoirs of Anthony

Eden, p. 642.

Introduction

to Papers of Trygve Lie

1

tainly on the side of a greater place in world affairs than had been taken by the Secretary-General of the League of Nations. How this was to be brought about, however, and how far beyond the Drummond concept it might be carried, were questions to which the record provided few clear answers. The makers of policy in the Governments and the specialists down the line had given them little thought and attention. In particular, they had not explored in any depth the consequences that might flow from the wider political responsibilities implied by the specific authority conferred in Article 99, nor the problems of reconciling such ministerialtype responsibilities with the Secretary-General's position as the chief international civil servant. It is fair to say that the direction in which the Office was to evolve depended at least as much upon the course chosen by its first incumbent and the political climate in which he found himself as upon the constitution-makers. Trygve Lie's approach in the beginning was cautious and pragmatic. He recalls in his memoirs rejecting as unrealistic the advice of some ardent internationalists that he attempt a role of world leadership. The limited Drummond concept of the Office was also unacceptable, he felt, though many officials in the foreign offices of major capitals would have been only too happy, as Lie put it, "to see Article 99 of the Charter and all the implied power deriving from it, consigned to an unused constitutional corner to gather dust." Such was, indeed, to be the fate of other important articles of the Charter, for example Articles 43 to 47 providing for military agreements and UN armed forces and paragraph 2 of Article 28 providing for high-level periodic meetings of the Security Council. Lie summed up his attitude as he began his service in the following terms: "I had no calculated plan for developing the political powers of the office of Secretary-General, but I was determined that the SecretaryGeneral should be a force for peace. How that force would be applied I would find out—in the light of developments." 0 The public papers selected for this volume include the texts relevant to a study of how Trygve Lie sought to use his office as "a force for peace" during his seven years of service. The editors have provided commentary recalling context and background. Lie's own account of his stewardship, In the Cause of Peace, provides indispensable source material on the private diplomatic efforts which accompanied his public stands. The following pages review briefly the course of development from 1946 0

Lie, Trygve, In the Cause of Peace, Macmillan, 1954, p. 42.

8

Introduction

to Papers of Trygve

Lie

to 1953, giving page references to relevant texts and commentary in the main part of the book.

in During his first ten months in office Lie succeeded in establishing a firm procedural base for an active political role. After some initial controversy he won unanimous agreement to a rule of procedure confirming his right to make oral or written statements on any question under consideration by the Security Council. Later, on his suggestion, the Assembly's rules were amended to eliminate the original restriction that he speak only on invitation of the President (pp. 39-41). His first annual report departed from League precedent by including a brief personal statement of his views as spokesman "for the United Nations as a whole" (pp. 48-56). This first step led in subsequent years to further development of the introductions to his annual reports into major statements of policy and assessments of the desirable role of the United Nations in world affairs. Lie seized an opportunity during an early phase of the Security Council's consideration of the Greek border question to reserve "his right," under Article 99, "to make such enquiries or investigations as he may think necessary." No Member challenged this assertion of a right not explicitly stated in the Charter, though it could reasonably be implied (pp. 46-47). Thus by the end of 1946 it was generally accepted that the SecretaryGeneral: could give his own views on any question being considered by the principal representative organs of the United Nations; could bring before the Security Council any matter which in his opinion might threaten peace and security; had the right to make such independent enquiries as he deemed necessary to arrive at a judgment in such cases; could propose for the General Assembly's agenda any matter within the scope of the Charter; could fill the role of world spokesman for the principles of the Charter and the common interest of all the Member States. This was—and remains—a wide constitutional mandate and a good part of it was still moot when Trygve Lie first took the oath of office. The practical political limitations upon the effective exercise of such a mandate have been great and the pitfalls numerous in the conditions that have prevailed in international affairs since 1945. As Lie was to point out, the whole concept was in many respects far ahead of times

Introduction

to Papers of Trygve Lie

9

"when nationalism is stronger than ever and national sovereignty still the ruling force." 7 The Secretary-General's position at the center of international affairs gave opportunity for the exercise of moral influence, but he had no material power, independent of the Governments, to bring to bear in support of his influence. As spokesman for the Organization as a whole and for the collective interest only, as he conceived that interest, he had to avoid as much as possible taking sides on controversial questions, except when he believed the collective interest required it. The Cold War introduced very serious additional difficulties for the Secretary-General's role. It also endangered almost from its birth the life of the Organization itself. Throughout his service most of Trygve Lie's political initiatives were addressed in one way or another to this danger. As the cleavage widened he worked to keep the Organization together as a world-wide institution embracing both East and West and functioning to the maximum extent that the Cold War allowed. The post-war East-West conflict was not a brand new phenomenon, but the most recent phase of a relationship in which strong elements of mutual fear, suspicion, and hostility had been present in varying degree since 1918. Even during the war only a very precarious and limited degree of intercourse and cooperation had been achieved. The Charter provided an institutional framework within which it was hoped this slightly improved relationship might be preserved and eventually evolve toward something better and safer. The Cold War was a setback but it was not irreversible and it did not justify abandoning or shelving the effort. On the contrary there were compelling reasons why the effort should be pressed. From time to time the United Nations might help ameliorate the often dangerous tensions of the East-West conflict. Openings should be tested whenever discerned. Furthermore, there was much constructive work the United Nations system could perform despite the Cold War. Its powers were limited, its institutions new and largely untried. These could be tempered and strengthened by experience only to the extent that Member Governments in a position to do so assigned them meaningful responsibilities and resources. Such were the beliefs which moved Trygve Lie's administration. From 1947 onward the more powerful and influential Governments did not in practice accord a high priority to such aims, though usually continuing to pay them lip-service. Leadership, planning, and material resources became almost totally absorbed in fighting the short-range bati In the Cause of Peace, p. 88.

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Lie

ties of the Cold War. Constructive programs like the Marshall Plan for economic reconstruction in Europe and "Point Four" for economic development in Asia, Africa, and Latin America would have been as necessary and worthy of support if there had never been a Cold War. They were well-suited to the multilateral institutions of the United Nations. Indeed, when they were first proposed, it was the announced intention to carry them out wholly, or in large part, within a United Nations framework. Instead they came to be evaluated and supported or opposed primarily in terms of East-West conflict. The war-prostrated economies of the Soviet Union and its Eastern European neighbors were at least as much in need of Marshall Plan aid as Western Europe but the Soviet Government turned down the invitation to join in the program, dogmatically hostile as usual to joint economic planning with the "capitalist" West and fearful the recovery program would be used to weaken the Communist hold in Eastern Europe, thereby, in its eyes, undermining Soviet security. The Soviet rejection of the Marshall Plan was no doubt a fortunate circumstance for those responsible for persuading the United States Congress to appropriate the great sums needed to finance the program. At any rate a major argument used in its behalf was fear that otherwise the Communists might seize power in a poverty-stricken Western Europe, and Soviet power extend all the way to the Atlantic. The argument of fear was an important factor in gaining the necessary votes. Thereafter the European Recovery Program, amply endowed financially and given brilliant leadership and planning by Paul Hoffman, who was later to devote his great talents to United Nations programs, achieved a magnificent success. The program, though limited to Western Europe by Soviet hostility, was a striking demonstration of what could be achieved by the multilateral approach. Point Four of President Truman's 1949 inaugural address marked the beginning of the United States foreign aid program for economically under-developed countries. In his address, Truman called for "a cooperative enterprise in which all nations work together through the United Nations and its Specialized Agencies wherever practicable." Soon after the United States did in fact take the lead in launching the United Nations' expanded program for technical assistance and was from the beginning the principal financial supporter of this multilateral program. However, by far the larger part of the United States foreign aid program as it developed over the years was on a bilateral basis and was given Congressional and public support primarily as one of the instruments

Introduction

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11

through which the United States sought to block the expansion of Communist influence and increase its own. The other Western Powers followed a similar policy in their aid programs. When the Soviet Union later began competing in this field, it acted almost exclusively on a bilateral basis, though making small contributions to United Nations programs after 1952. Many years after Trygve Lie left office and after many disillusioning failures to win political favor in return for bilateral economic aid, the superior values of multilateral programs, which replace the unhealthy rich man-poor man relationship with an international partnership, still lacked sufficient recognition in the major industrial nations. Many smaller Western nations, like the Nordic countries, understood the point from the beginning. Per capita and in relation to their resources they might be devoting more to foreign aid than the United States but they were not led astray by involvement in a struggle to exert political power in other lands. Throughout his term Lie did what he could to encourage and enlist more support from Governments for United Nations programs for economic development. There was some progress, but it was very slow, and always severely restricted by the poisoned political atmosphere (see esp. Introductions to his annual reports from 1949 onward).

IV On the political side Lie began early a series of efforts in support of a stronger role for the United Nations. In 1947 and 1948 two questions arose which involved the constitutional extent of the Security Council's powers. The first was the responsibility for the Free Territory of Trieste proposed for the Council in the Italian Peace Treaty. The second was the question of the Security Council's right to use armed force in carrying out the Partition Plan for Palestine that had been voted by the General Assembly. In both cases Lie actively and publicly supported a broad interpretation of the Council's powers. In both cases also the United States and the Soviet Union were for a short time on the same side. This was an important factor in Lie's activity, especially in behalf of the Palestine Partition Plan. When the two Great Powers agreed on a question—as they so rarely did—the opportunity to strengthen the United Nations' role and influence should be grasped. As he had done on the Iranian agenda question in 1946, Lie submitted a legal opinion on the Security Council's powers when the Italian

12

Introduction to Papers of Trygve Lie

Peace Treaty provisions on Trieste came before the Council in January 1947. The Secretary-General's statement argued that the Security Council was not limited to the specific grants of authority contained in various articles of the Charter but also had a general authority arising from the primary responsibility conferred by the Members in Article 24 upon the Council "for the maintenance of international peace and security" and their agreement that "in carrying out its duties under this responsibility the Security Council acts on their behalf." After hearing this legal opinion the Council voted 10 to 0 to accept the proposed responsibilities for Trieste. Only Australia, which had raised the constitutional issue, abstained (pp. 71-73). A year later, when the question of implementing the Palestine Partition Plan arose, the reasoning of the Trieste opinion was used in a legal working paper prepared for the Palestine Conciliation Commission which Lie later sent to the President of the Security Council. Lie believed that the Council could and should use force if necessary to uphold the Partition Plan, which the Assembly had adopted by a two-thirds majority including both the United States and U.S.S.R. As will appear in the commentary on the texts, he explored privately and in vain possibilities for raising an international force from among the smaller countries and at one time considered proposing to the Council an emergency force composed of equal land units from each of the Big Five (pp. 10517). Lie was grievously disappointed when the United States backed away from the use of force and then abandoned the Partition Plan entirely. Though the Soviet Union maintained its support of partition, the change in the American position foreclosed any possibility that the Security Council would proceed as Lie had hoped. The blame, in this case, could be placed upon American vacillation instead of Soviet obstructionism. The Israelis won by war the independent nationhood promised by the Partition Plan which they had accepted, but other key elements of the Plan—the Palestinian Arab state in economic union with Israel and the international regime for Jerusalem—were lost. Though the Arab leadership bitterly opposed the Partition Plan and the creation of Israel, one may wonder if the timely dispatch of an effective United Nations force in 1948 and establishment of a strong and permanent international presence in Jerusalem might not have led to a better answer than the bloodshed of three wars and countless border incidents, the tragedy and

Introduction

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13

shame of more than a million Arab refugees, and the undiminished hostility we have witnessed in the twenty years since that time. A few weeks after efforts to carry out the Partition Plan had collapsed in 1948, Trygve Lie made a proposal for a new kind of UN Force which, if adopted, he hoped might strengthen the Organization's peacekeeping capacity. So long as the Cold War continued it was now evident that agreement was out of reach on the provision of forces by the five Great Powers as intended by Article 43. On the other hand the Palestine experience, in Lie's view, demonstrated how valuable even a small force might be. He decided to suggest, therefore, a UN Guard Force of 1,000 to 5,000 men, internationally recruited by the Secretary-General. It would not be "a striking force" or a substitute for the forces contemplated by Article 43, but could be used for such functions as guard duty, the conduct of plebiscites, administration of truce terms, and as a constabulary in setting up international regimes "in cities like Jerusalem and Trieste." It would be at the disposal of the Security Council primarily, but also of the General Assembly and Trusteeship Council insofar as the latter were empowered to use such a force. In the Harvard Commencement speech where he launched the idea, Lie emphasized the belief that, even in Palestine, the timely presence of a small guard force would have sufficed because it would have had "all the authority of the United Nations behind it" (pp. 131-35, 156). Lie's proposal immediately encountered Russian hostility to any UN force except one established by the Security Council, where the unanimity rule would require Soviet agreement to its composition. On the Western side there was some skepticism and a lack of interest among Governments concentrating their attention on the creation of forces for NATO. Lie sought to meet objections and doubts about his plan by progressively scaling down its size and functions and even its name from "Guard Force" to "Guard" and finally to a technical "Field Service" of not more than 300 men. In this last version it was finally approved late in 1949 by the Assembly, though opposition from the Soviet Bloc continued (pp. 158-62, 166-77, 186-94). Two other cases before 1950 in which Trygve Lie took the initiative or made a stand in support of steps to strengthen the international capacity of the Organization should also be mentioned. The first related to international law, the second to the trusteeship system. As a result of action initiated by the Secretary-General after the as-

14

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Lie

sassination of Count Folke Bernadotte, the International Court of Justice rendered an advisory opinion in 1949 holding that the United Nations not only could bring a claim under international law against a State for reparation of damages to itself but could claim reparation also for injury to an international official acting as its agent. The opinion marked an advance in the juridical status under international law of international organization and of the international civil servant (pp. 2 2 7 35). The second case involved the disposition of the former Italian colonies in North Africa, which had been placed in the hands of the General Assembly under the terms of the Italian Peace Treaty. Instead of trusteeships individually administered for parts of Libya, as had been proposed by Great Britain and Italy, Lie advocated in the introduction to his 1949 annual report a transitional United Nations trusteeship for all of Libya, pending independence, which would be administered by the Organization itself as authorized by Article 81 of the Charter, but never attempted. In the end the Assembly voted during its 1949 session independence for a united Libya by 1952, without any trusteeship in the meantime but with a UN Commissioner, elected by the Assembly and reporting to the Secretary-General, to assist the transition. This was a solution very much in the spirit of Lie's approach (pp. 212-13, 224). V The initiatives to which reference has been made in the preceding paragraphs were directed, in one way or another, toward strengthening the institutional capacity and utility of the Organization. The other main area of Trygve Lie's political activity before the attack on South Korea was concerned with preserving the United Nations as a place for negotiation between East and West and with defending the principle of universality which it represented against the doctrine of irreconcilable conflict. This latter doctrine became a dominant factor in attitudes and reactions on both sides of the Iron Curtain from 1948 onward. Each side saw itself threatened by the other's hostile ideology and military power. The West feared the spread of Communism and the massive Soviet superiority in armed manpower. This fear intensified after the Communist coup in Czechoslovakia and the imposition of the Berlin blockade. From Moscow the view was different. The Communist leaders saw an ideologically hostile West in sole possession of atomic

Introduction

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15

weapons which could destroy the Soviet Union. Moves which to Western eyes were aggressive and threatening no doubt appeared to Moscow as necessary efforts to check-mate the advantage which this monopoly gave to the West in the power struggle. It was not until near the end of 1949 that the monopoly was broken and several years later still before the Soviet Union had enough nuclear weapons to mark the beginning of what came to be known as the era of mutual deterrence. Beginning with his memorial address at Hyde Park on April 12, 1948, the third anniversary of Franklin D. Roosevelt's death, Trygve Lie spoke out time and again in speeches and in the introductions to his annual reports against committing the world to the kind of warfare which Moslem and Christian and, later, Catholic and Protestant had waged against each other. Like most Westerners he disagreed with much Communist dogma and practice and had for years consistently opposed Communist influence in the Norwegian trade union movement. But he was a pragmatist, not an ideologue. Another religious war—on a world-wide scale and with the weapons now becoming available—would be an irreparable tragedy. It should be prevented, and Lie believed it could be without surrender by either side. The conflicts of the Cold War were not irreconcilable. In the perspective of history they would be seen as passing phenomena. Naturally Governments had to take them into account in their foreign policies and look to their defenses. Alliances like NATO might be required in the circumstances, but they should not become the be-all and end-all of policy. Above all, the goals of diversity and peaceful change and competition within the universal framework of world organization should not be sacrificed. The United Nations should not "be regarded as an expendable commodity by one or both sides" in order to achieve victories in the Cold War. The Secretary-General was often a lonely spokesman and defender of such beliefs, while the vocabulary and military preoccupations of the Cold War overwhelmingly dominated the major capitals of the world. There was much talk of the inevitability of war and the demise of the United Nations. From time to time Lie was sharply criticized from both sides. The Moscow press disliked his firm support of the Marshall Plan and on other occasions accused him of pro-American stands. Some American newspapers and politicians charged him with being proCommunist and an appeaser. It is noteworthy however, that neither side in these bitter years, while disagreeing with his views at times, chal-

16

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Lie

lenged his exercise of the function of spokesman for the United Natiions as a whole. Both the New York Times and Pravda gave prominence to the introductions to his annual reports and his major speeches were accorded wide attention. The stature and prestige of his Office were being firmly established in this respect, as in others (e.g. pp. 118-30, 136—57, 212-26). The Secretary-General was concerned in this period that the channels of communication between the Soviet Union and the West be kept open and in use, especially in the United Nations. Even when prospects of reaching any agreement appeared dim or nonexistent, he supported the maintenance of contacts and of attempts to negotiate. At least these might help prevent miscalculations and reduce to some extent areas of misunderstanding. Communications broke down in the fall of 1948 at the height of the dangerous Berlin crisis when the Western Powers charged the Soviet Union in the Security Council with threatening the peace and refused to resume negotiations until the blockade of Berlin was lifted. They broke down again at the beginning of 1950, when the Soviet Union walked out of all United Nations meetings in protest against the continued representation of China by the Nationalists instead of by the Communist Government in Peking. In both cases Lie undertook initiatives aimed at restoring communication between the two sides. In the Berlin crisis the Secretary-General joined with the President of the General Assembly, Herbert V. Evatt of Australia, in a direct public appeal to the Heads of Government of the Big Four to resume negotiations in the spirit of a resolution that had just been adopted unanimously by the General Assembly. The appeal failed, but in the meantime Lie had begun exploring a possible way out of the impasse over negotiations through the device of an independent attempt by experts to resolve outstanding issues in the currency dispute with which the Berlin crisis had begun. This approach was adopted when the President of the Security Council, Juan A. Bramuglia of Argentina, formed a committee of experts appointed by the six non-permanent members of the Security Council and the Secretary-General. This effort, also, fell short, for the committee could not produce a currency plan fully acceptable to both sides. Meanwhile the Western air-lift was achieving its remarkable success and the Soviet Union, convinced of Western determination to maintain their position in Berlin, decided to give way. Its decision, when it came, was communicated to the West through United Nations channels,

Introduction

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17

from the Soviet delegate to the United States delegate. Thereafter direct negotiations on Berlin and Germany were resumed between the two sides. The combined effect of the unsuccessful efforts of the SecretaryGeneral, the Presidents of the Security Council and General Assembly, and of many representatives of the smaller Member States had at least contributed to lowering the temperature of a potentially explosive situation during several critical months (pp. 178-85). VI After Jacob Malik walked out of the Security Council on January 13, 1950 over the issue of the representation of China, the ensuing boycott by the Soviet Bloc was extended to sessions of all other UN organs in which Nationalist China was present. Soviet participation in the work of the United Nations was virtually suspended. This was only a step or two short of withdrawal from the Organization, and the representative organs of the United Nations had ceased to act as a bridge between the Soviet Bloc and the West as the Charter intended that they should. Trygve Lie was greatly concerned. He had a low opinion of the Soviet Union's tactics but he supported seating the Peking Government because it was the Government in control of China. He believed that the restoration of the United Nations to full working order was more important than administering a rebuff to the Soviet Union for its rude tactics, all the more so since the Soviet position on the question of representation seemed to him right in principle. In the winter of 1950 there appeared to be a fair chance to bring the Peking Government into the United Nations and the Soviet Union back to the Council table. The circumstances are recalled in the commentary on the relevant texts (see pp. 259-67). Five members of the Security Council had by then recognized Peking, while five continued to recognize the Nationalist Government on Formosa. As it was generally agreed that the veto would not apply on a question of credentials, two votes added to the five already recognizing Peking would have sufficed. Lie worked hard for this outcome in private diplomatic efforts with delegates and the United States State Department and in public. He circulated a memorandum on legal aspects of the problem, distinguishing between the question of UN representation and the act of recognition by individual Governments. Lie's legal arguments were wellfounded in international law and the precedents and conformed to the

18

Introduction to Papers of Trygve Lie

basic character of the Organization, which was not an association of likeminded States but one "which aspires to universality." They offered a sound and convenient way out of the impasse to those Member Governments which agreed that United Nations representation should respond to reality but were not ready yet for one reason or another to withdraw de jure recognition from the Government on Formosa or to accord de jure recognition to Peking. The period from January to June 1950 was to mark a nearer approach to Communist China's participation in the United Nations than would occur in the years since that time. Unhappily this was also a time of rapid intensification of Cold War tensions and hardening positions. The United States responded in January to the Soviet success in breaking the United States atomic monopoly 3 or 4 years earlier than expected by deciding to proceed with development of the hydrogen bomb. The effects of the shock occasioned by the disastrous defeat of the Chiang Kai-shek regime were intensified when the Chinese Communist Government concluded an alliance with the Soviet Union in February and engaged in hostile and violent acts against American and other Western lives and property. In the United States such events as the conviction of Alger Hiss in January and Senator Joseph R. McCarthy's speech at Wheeling, West Virginia, in February charging heavy Communist infiltration of the State Department also contributed to an atmosphere highly unfavorable to attempts at conciliation with the Communist Powers. Lie, however, believed the dangers of the situation for peace and for the life of the United Nations made it all the more important that he persist. He decided to link the effort to seat Peking and bring the Soviet Union back into active participation with a broader appeal for a reopening of negotiations between the West and the Communist world and a reaffirmation of the continued validity of the United Nations approach. In the Washington speech which opened his campaign on March 21, 1950, he used the phrase "What the world needs is a Twenty-Year Program to win peace through the United Nations" to indicate the longerrange perspective he had in mind, as distinct from the shorter-range considerations of the Cold War. Most of the ten points he later outlined in the memorandum he carried with him on his peace mission to London, Paris, Moscow, and Washington were simply calls for renewed efforts in support of major goals of the Charter, with a few new approaches suggested. The primary

Introduction to Papers of Trygve Lie

19

goal of his mission was to restore negotiation. For this purpose he invoked Article 28, paragraph 2 of the Charter, which called for periodic high-level meetings of the Security Council but had remained a dead letter. Lie proposed semi-annual meetings, attended by foreign ministers or Heads of Government, primarily as he put it, for private consultations "to gain ground toward agreement on questions at issue, to clear up misunderstandings, to prepare for new initiatives that may improve the chances for definitive agreement at later meetings." An encouragement to Lie in making this proposal was the advocacy by Winston Churchill and Anthony Eden during the British election campaign of reopening direct negotiations with Stalin. But the Conservatives just missed returning to power in the February 1950 elections in Britain and Ernest Bevin, the Labour Foreign Minister, cared even less than Dean Acheson for attempting any further negotiation with the Soviet Union at that time. Lie's peace mission evoked a much greater popular response than any other initiative he had undertaken. It also made possible many hours of private talks on United Nations and Cold War questions with the Heads of Government and foreign ministers of the Big Four Powers, including Stalin, at a time when there was no meaningful contact between leaders of the Soviet Union and the West. The Secrctary-General suffered a setback when the three Western Foreign Ministers decided at a meeting in May to postpone a planned reconsideration of the question of Chinese representation until the end of August. Nevertheless, when Lie had completed his mission at the beginning of June there still seemed to be a fair chance of winning over the two additional Council votes needed to seat Communist China. Once that happened and the Russians returned to the Council table the momentum for renewed East-West talks aimed at some reduction of tensions would gather force. No one had said "no" to Lie's advocacy of a high-level periodic meeting of the Security Council. If these aims had been accomplished—and in time—it is hard to believe that the North Korean attack on South Korea would then have been permitted to occur at all. Had the Government of the People's Republic of China come into the United Nations in the winter or spring of 1950, only a few months after winning the civil war, the subsequent course of events would surely have been profoundly affected and opportunities created for moving toward a relationship of diminishing hostility and an increasing mutuality of understanding.

20

Introduction

to Papers of Trygve Lie

In his memoirs Trygve Lie recalled the earlier isolation of the U.S.S.R. after the 1917 revolution and wrote: "I had always believed that this was a great mistake and that the West, instead, should have sought every means to fuller intercourse with Russia in the 1920s. Such a policy might well have influenced the development of the Soviet state in a direction other than the one it took." 8 Eighteen years after Lie's peace mission, these words continued to have relevance for Western policy toward both the great Communist Powers (pp. 268-308, 31522, 330-32, 336-40, 362-76).

vn Trygve Lie's immediate, unequivocal, and influential stand in support of United Nations resistance to the sudden attack upon South Korea raised against him the implacable enmity of the Soviet Union and shut the door against future efforts by the Secretary-General at building bridges while Lie remained in office. It was not necessary or expected of him to speak first on that famous Sunday afternoon of June 25, 1950, and before the Security Council had come to a decision. He had not done so on previous occasions when the Council met to deal with outbreaks of armed conflict. Even when the Arab States attacked in Palestine after the proclamation of Israel's independence he had refrained from invoking Article 99 after first considering this step. Now the United States had already acted to bring the Korean attack before the Council so that no initiative by the Secretary-General was required for that purpose. When, nevertheless, Trygve Lie took the lead in such clear-cut fashion, he did so for compelling reasons. The future of Korea had been the concern of the United Nations since 1947. In particular the Government of the Republic of Korea in the south had been established after elections under United Nations supervision in 1948 and the Assembly had twice declared this Government to be the only freely elected and lawful Government in Korea. Reports from the United Nations Commission in Korea and from other sources all supported the conclusion that this was a case of deliberate armed aggression, secretly prepared and planned in North Korea, which had from the first barred any UN presence. This was a direct armed challenge to the United Nations itself. The element of surprise in particular reminded Lie unpleasantly of the 1940 Nazi invasion of Norway. The case for collective action through the United Na8

In the Cause of Peace, p. 254.

Introduction to Papers of Trygve Lie

21

tions to stop the aggression could hardly have been more clear-cut. Furthermore the United States, which had been unwilling to use force to uphold the Palestine Partition Plan, this time was resolved to commit its military power. The Secretary-General's initiative in the Council put the full weight and prestige of his Office squarely on the side of the first collective armed resistance to aggression ever undertaken by or under the auspices of international organization. This fact and his subsequent activity in urging Member States to contribute in some form to the cause were undoubtedly influential in rallying support on so wide and representative a scale. Outside the Soviet Bloc the overwhelming majority of Member States on every continent backed the principle of collective action and many contributed materially as well, including many smaller Members which like to stay clear of Great Power conflicts when they can, as well as some traditionally neutral States. This wide spectrum of support kept the Korean action within a truly international framework. Though the Security Council delegated the military leadership to the United States, which necessarily bore most of the burden, its available resources being so much greater than the rest, the war remained a United Nations war, sanctioned and supported by most of the international community. The importance of this fact was given renewed emphasis in later years, when we have seen examples of the damage that can be done to international cooperation and to respect for law by the unilateral use of force even when the cause seemed just (pp. 313-22, 325-26, 336-45, 348-53). Trygve Lie hoped the Korean experience would result in strengthening the United Nations' capacity to act promptly and effectively against any future acts of armed aggression. He vigorously supported the 1950 Uniting for Peace resolution and assigned a strong Secretariat team to serve the Collective Measures Committee and Peace Observation Commission established by that resolution. He submitted to the Collective Measures Committee a proposal of his own for creating a reserve of volunteers for UN military service within the regular reserve establishments of Member States. However, the whole effort to provide for advance commitments, planning, and machinery was abandoned by its principal Western sponsors after 1952 when NATO was reorganized and strengthened (pp. 472-76). Lie's final two years in office were shadowed by the Soviet refusal to recognize him as Secretary-General and by the attacks launched upon

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Lie

the Secretariat at the height of the McCarthy era in the United States. The extension of his term by the Assembly after the Soviet Union had vetoed his reappointment in the Security Council was an evasion of the procedure agreed at San Francisco, though there was good reason for it. The great majority of Members feared that the future independence of the Office would be placed in jeopardy if a Great Power were permitted to punish a Secretary-General in this way for doing his duty under the Charter as he saw it, as Lie had done against the wishes of the Soviet Union when South Korea was attacked (pp. 3 5 8 - 6 1 ) . Despite Soviet hostility Lie continued to speak out for the goals outlined in his Twenty-Year Peace Plan and for renewed efforts to improve East-West relationships once the fighting in Korea had been ended. He advocated a truce roughly along the line of the 38 th Parallel some weeks before the armistice negotiations began, though he was much disturbed when the talks dragged on for two more years while the fighting continued (pp. 380-82, 385-86, 3 9 3 - 9 7 ) . It was a great satisfaction to him to welcome the 1952 General Assembly to the newly completed Permanent Headquarters, a project to which he had given effective personal leadership and a great deal of time since 1946 (pp. 4 7 8 - 8 2 ) . Only after this task was accomplished and the success of the United Nations action in Korea was evidently assured even though the Armistice was not yet signed, did Lie submit his resignation. He did so a year before the extension of his term ran out because he rightly thought the time had come to place in his office a successor upon whom the West and the Communist world agreed. He had to serve four months more before Dag Hammarskjold became Secretary-General. These were unpleasant and difficult months. The American hysteria over an imagined internal Communist menace now centered on the United Nations Secretariat, and the incoming Eisenhower administration was bending part way to the prevailing McCarthy wind while waiting hopefully for it to blow itself away. Lie had no sympathy for the hysteria and vigorously defended the large American contingent in the Secretariat against indiscriminate smears and false charges. He also thought it quite inappropriate and unrepresentative of American society that even a few American Communists, whether overt or covert, should be employed in the Secretariat. There were some in the West who felt Lie had yielded too far to American pressures in one or two respects. Perhaps so, but his explanation and vigorous defense of his personnel policy in the Assembly won gen-

Introduction

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23

eral understanding and support. This was to be his last statement on major policy questions. His tactics in defense of the independence and international character of the Secretariat's responsibilities had taken fully into account the political realities of that time. It was partly for this very reason, perhaps, that the international civil service could emerge from the ordeal without any lasting damage to its status and in the end go on to win an increased measure of respect and understanding for that status (pp. 4 8 7 - 5 0 9 ) . In April, as he left office, Lie delivered a brief valedictory in the Assembly addressed to Governments and another over United Nations radio, addressed to the peoples of Member States. These were his final acts in his capacity as custodian of the ideals represented by the United Nations and as defender of the faith that they could, in the long run, be made to prevail. In both speeches he looked to the future. To the Governments he stressed his opinion that the limitations of the Organization had been "well tested" over the past seven years but that "its potentialities for peace have been less well explored." He then continued with words that were to prove prophetic of advances made under his successor, Dag Hammarskjold: "The Charter is a flexible instrument, capable of adaptation and improvement, not merely by amendment but by interpretation and practice. I am convinced that the institutions of the United Nations system can be used by the Member States with far greater effect than in the past for the peace and progress of all those nations willing to cooperate." His radio speech concluded with the affirmations that "the men and women and children of every race and culture, of every nation and every system of society, have more in their hearts that unites them than divides them," and that the United Nations is "the supreme expression of this unifying force of human brotherhood in a world threatened by selfdestruction." He called upon the people to hold firm in their faith and give the United Nations their "active support in all the tests that lie ahead" (pp. 5 1 1 - 2 0 ) . In November, 1960, Dag Hammarskjold had himself served over seven years in office when he spoke in the following terms at the unveiling of a portrait of Trygve Lie in the U N Headquarters: "In the development of an experiment of international cooperation like this one, every day counts, every action, yes even every word counts in establishing the record on which the final outcome will be judged.

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Introduction to Papers of Trygve Lie

What has happened in the last few years has therefore as its background the events and the moves that preceded the present period. We reap what was sown and we add to the history our own successes and our own failures. It is necessary that we keep the perspective clear and look always at the life of the Organization in its organic entirety." 9 ANDREW W . CORDIER a n d WILDER FOOTE

July 1,

1968

9 Typescript in Hammarskjold Public Papers File, Columbia University School of International Affairs. See also UN Press Release Note 2270, 21 November 1960.

M 1945 M At the Charter Conference —Speech in the Opening Debate SAN FRANCISCO

MAY 2, 1945

As NORWAY'S Minister of Foreign Affairs, Trygve Lie headed his country's delegation to the United Nations Conference on International Organization, which opened in San Francisco April 25, 1945, less than two weeks after the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt He spoke in the opening debate at the eighth plenary session, May 2. Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav M. Molotov, whose turn it was to preside that day, introduced him. Lie remained in San Francisco only a few days longer. When Germany surrendered on May 8, he flew back to London to take part in the liberation of his country. Both this and the following selection have been included as expressions of the national and personal views on world organization and the problems of peace which were held by Lie in the months immediately preceding his election as Secretary-General.

Many words have already been spoken from this rostrum to honor the memory of the late President Roosevelt. The people of Norway would fail to understand it if today I did not express also their feelings of sorrow and bereavement. President Roosevelt was a friend of Norway. He often showed his sympathy for Norway. Ever since my country was invaded he demonstrated his friendship and helpfulness, and in Norway his name meant endurance and encouragement. He will always have a high place in the hearts of the Norwegian people. When after six long years of struggle against a cruel and terrible enemy, we stand today before final victory over Germany, our thoughts go to the millions of men and women in the whole of the free world who through their courage and sacrifices have made this victory possible. We U N C I O Documents, Vol. I, p. 552. Verbatim Minutes, 8th Plenary Session, May 2, 1945.

26

At the Charter

Conference

Norwegians are proud that we have been able to make our contribution to this fight. But we fully realize that our country could never be liberated without the help of all our Allies. We shall never forget that Great Britain stood firm in the summer and autumn of 1940 when everything seemed to crumble, and we have an unforgettable impression of the immense war effort of the British nation in the years which have passed. Our people have with admiration followed the Red Army in their heroic defensive battles and in their victorious offensive. And we are deeply grateful to the Soviet Russian forces who came as friends to liberate the northernmost part of our country. Our people have highly appreciated their kindness and helpfulness and their loyal cooperation with the Norwegian authorities. We also know that victory could never have been won without the overwhelming contribution of the United States of America. That is not only due to the economic and technical resources of that country but also to the enthusiasm, courage, and faith of its people. Nor shall we ever forget the almost unbelievable stand and fortitude of our Chinese allies in their fight against the Japanese. It is my firm conviction that victory, which will soon be ours, has only been made possible by the trustful cooperation and understanding between the Great Powers, and I believe it imperative that the future peace and security be built on the same foundation. As we stood together in war, we must stand together in peace. We Norwegians have come here to assist and not to offer negative criticism. We know that the Dumbarton Oaks Proposals are not perfect, and we welcome a number of the amendments that have been suggested. But even if the Charter as molded at this Conference will not correspond to all our desires and ideas, we hope that the building of a new security order will be started under such conditions that in the future it may be further developed in a process of continuous creation. An international organization as envisaged in the Dumbarton Oaks Proposals means perhaps even more to small nations than to the greater countries, because in the modern world, without security, their very life is at stake. Norway is the only northern European country among the United Nations, and we should have been more than glad if our sister nations could have been with us here today. Our sympathy goes to our friends in Denmark, who, under difficult circumstances, have stoutly resisted a common enemy; in spirit they are with us, and we are confident that

May 2, 1945

27

when the time comes, all the northern countries will want to join this great fraternity of nations. In the political tradition of Norway, the idea has never been accepted that there must be an intrinsic conflict of interests between large and small countries. All the members of the United Nations are bound together, not only by their vital interests in protection against aggression, but also by their ideas and ideals which have found their expression in the Atlantic Charter and in the United Nations Declaration. In any new world order the Great Powers will have to shoulder the main burden of providing the military and material means for maintaining peace, and we are prepared to grant them an international status corresponding to their responsibility and power. But at the same time we have a strong feeling that also moral standards should be taken into account. To our people who have lived under Axis occupation, it seems essential that this Conference should include among the principles of its organization the aspirations expressed in the United Nations declarations: To defend life, liberty, independence, and religious freedom, to preserve human rights. We have to bear in mind what has also been mentioned by preceding speakers that the enforcement of peace is only one aspect of international security. In view of the establishment of the new security organization we trust that a period of political stability will follow this war. This will mean a concentration on the part of the participating nations on the constructive efforts in international cooperation. Turning thus to the work which will devolve on the General Assembly and through the General Assembly on the Economic and Social Council, I would like to stress that economic, social, and intellectual cooperation form a whole. Without such cooperation, our efforts might prove futile in the years to come. We hope to bring to the future deliberations and labors of the new Organization the spirit and experience of a community which for centuries has been built on the respect for law and justice. The profound belief in social justice and an unswerving attachment to fundamental human rights and freedoms, deeply rooted in our traditions, have been the rock upon which the Nazi attacks upon our convictions have been wrecked. It is obvious that lasting peace must be based on economic progress and social justice. We stand together today before a world which has been exposed to economic and social destruction without precedent in history. The United Nations are therefore confronted with a task which

28

At the Charter Conference

can be solved only through planned international cooperation. But we must also look further ahead. We must not again risk that economic and social anarchy which lead to new crises and new mass unemployment. It must be one of the main tasks of the new international organization to secure an increasingly higher standard of living and social security for all. This will also be necessary in order that the masses in all countries rally to our new Organization with confidence. It is not up to me to say how this should be done, but I join our Australian colleague [Herbert V. Evatt, Minister for External Affairs] in stressing that under the instruction of the General Assembly, the Economic and Social Council must be given the greatest possible authority and that it must be made one of the principal organs of the Organization. We of Norway realize what the Right Honourable Mackenzie King [Prime Minister of Canada] pointed out the other day, that a new organization will not provide a danger-proof system of complete security. We believe that in the future each nation will have to provide, according to its ability, the means destined to safeguard its own existence and independence. The nations of the occupied countries have proved in their struggle that there are certain invisible privileges of mankind without which life is not worth living. It is not sufficient for countries to be peace-loving. Our brothers and sons are fighting and dying because they and we love justice and human decency even more than peace. Daily bread turns to stone unless eaten in freedom and with human dignity.

M 1946 M Before the First as Norway's LONDON

Assembly

Representative JANUARY 16, 1946

was delivered during the general debate at a plenary meeting of the first General Assembly session in Westminister Central Hall, London. The Assembly had convened for the first time January 10, 1946, when Lie was defeated in a secret ballot for the presidency 28-23 by Paul-Henri Spaak, Belgian Foreign Minister, though both the United States and the Soviet Union voted for Lie. As in the preceding speech at San Francisco, he speaks here as Norway's foreign minister. T H E FOLLOWING SPEECH

Forty years ago our great poet, Bjornson, leading an international campaign against the oppression of the Poles, the Czechs, and the Slovaks, stated that the only thing that could save the peace of the world would be an organization of united nations, and he added: "The initiative rests with the small countries, for their life is at stake." In pursuance of this idea the policy of Norway was to support every effort of world collaboration. At the same time, it was based on an earnest desire to keep out of any conflict, and on the assumption that a declaration of neutrality constituted a guarantee of being kept out of war. The German invasion dispelled the idea that one can keep out of war by staying neutral. And since the very early days of the great fight for freedom, Norway has hoped for and advocated the formation of an organization such as the United Nations. Not only will our participation in its work be the basis of our foreign policy, but we consider it of vital importance that the work of the United Nations should succeed from the very start, and that all the delegations coming to this Assembly should return to their countries with doubts and misgivings removed, with new hope and new encouragement for the future of all nations. General Assembly Official Records, First Session, Part I, 9th Plenary Meeting, January 16, 1946.

30

Before the First Assembly

The Charter may not be perfect, and the work of the Preparatory Commission may be improved; but we believe that the results of the San Francisco Conference, as embodied in the Charter, represent the best that could, at the time, be attained, and we look upon it as a great victory for the cause of peace and security. Those clauses in the Charter which may be amended should be modified in the light of experience. We feel confident that it will be easier to find unanimous solutions to difficulties when we have started our work. Our main task here is to see that this be done. In order to ensure this, this first session of the General Assembly has in many ways to be mainly a technical session and it certainly would be wise not to raise political or constitutional problems which are not of immediate urgency, nor to try at this stage to reverse fundamental decisions which have already been made. For, much more important than our differences is the impressive fact that today representatives of fifty-one nations are gathered in this hall, determined to forge an effective instrument for peace and security. In this connection, all of us will want to express our gratitude to those Powers and their representatives which, in the turmoil of war, laboured for the peace to come, and initiated the negotiations which found their final result in this Assembly. The time has passed when the initiative rested with the small States alone. Only the Great Powers that shouldered the tremendous burdens of war, and whose unparalleled efforts made the victory possible, carried the weight which thus enabled us to establish the United Nations. The Norwegian delegation wholeheartedly shares the opinion that peace is one and indivisible, as has already been said from this rostrum, but it cannot be repeated too often. Unless we realize this fact, no useful results can be hoped for. That is why those who really wish to further the cause of world peace would be well advised not to try to find signs of power politics where they do not exist. They should not try to divide the world into separate blocs, when all constructive forces are really working together for the common welfare of mankind. Nothing would be more dangerous than if this new Organization should, from the outset, be used by any one Power for its own particular aims. We should also squarely face the fact that certain major political and territorial problems, mainly those which are connected with the peace treaties, will have to be dealt with by other means than through this Organization. It is quite evident that the Great Powers have far greater responsibili-

January

16, 1946

31

ties than the rest of us, and that it is their duty to work out fair and just settlements of those problems which cannot be dealt with by the Assembly. We all know that, without confident and sincere cooperation between all the Great Powers, our work would utterly fail and world peace would be a fiction. It would be an illusion to hope for successful international collaboration if this first and essential condition of peace and security did not exist. That is why the Norwegian Government sees no objection to the Great Powers being given a formal and constitutional influence on world affairs that corresponds to their greater responsibilities. Indeed, we are convinced that only thus can the new Organization become efficient. The Norwegian Government looks upon the Security Council, the General Assembly, the Economic and Social Council, and the International Court of Justice as a whole and we are willing to be of service whenever and wherever we may be called upon and find ourselves competent. But if we admit that the Great Powers must play the leading role in the Security Council, this does not mean that other nations should not make a very important contribution to our common work. The smaller nations have a great part to play in cementing the peace. They are disinterested in many political disputes, their ambitions are cultural and economic. And so, in the opinion of the Norwegian delegation, their foreign policy should aim at making a sincere contribution to the mutual understanding and confidence of the Great Powers. The good neighbour policy should be the basis of their relations with great and small Powers alike. Within the framework of the Charter some small nations would naturally collaborate more closely between themselves, a collaboration that should not be interpreted as having any bearing on their relations to any other Powers. In this spirit the Northern countries are collaborating in economic and cultural matters. That is also why Norway is hoping to see the other Northern countries as members of this organization of peace-loving nations at the earliest opportunity. It is in the General Assembly and in the Economic and Social Council that many of the Members can make their most important contribution to our common work. We are anxious to cooperate in the economic, social, cultural, and humanitarian activities of the United Nations, where important, difficult, and urgent problems are facing us. The Economic and Social Council will have to construct the firm foundations for peace-

32

Before the First Assembly

ful relations between the peoples of the earth, thus helping the Security Council by removing the causes of international conflicts. Norway will follow the tradition of Dr. Nansen, who was, at the same time, a national leader and a great world citizen. With him as her spokesman Norway advocated that it was the duty of all civilized nations to help towards the development of peoples which have not yet attained a full measure of self-government. Therefore, we regard the trusteeship system established at San Francisco as a great step forward, as an expression of the ideals we were fighting for: a great charter of liberty. Here is a common ground where great and small nations, even when not directly interested, can work together to create a new and better world. The Charter has given the world new hope that the mistakes that led to the world war will not be repeated. We have the instrument that can secure peace if we are all willing to make use of it. However, do not in this hour of launching the United Nations forget that Nazism and Fascism are still alive and infecting the minds of many human beings. It will be one of the most important tasks of the United Nations to rid the world system of this dangerous poison and to achieve the acceptance of the ideal of real democracy by all nations. We must not fail in this. Failure would be too costly to us all. Let us then go forward—united in peace as we were in war—willing to make all sacrifices and to take every responsibility.

Acceptance

Speech as

before the First LONDON

Secretary-General Assembly

FEBRUARY 2, 1946

PRIVATE CONSULTATIONS ending on January 2 9 , 1 9 4 6 , the five permanent members of the Security Council agreed to support Trygve Lie as Secretary-General. On motion of the United States Representative, Edward R. Stettinius, the Security Council then unanimously recommended his appointment and the General Assembly, on February 1, voted him into office by secret ballot 46-3. The next day he subscribed to the oath of office as an international civil servant, pledging himself to discharge his responsibilities with the interests of the United Nations only in view, and not to seek or accept instructions in regard to the performance of his duties from any Government or other authority external to the Organization. Spaak, his colleague in London during the war years and the man who had defeated him for the Assembly Presidency a fortnight earlier, paid him an eloquent personal tribute: "I have no doubts about you. You belong to one of those northern countries in which democracy has happily developed in order and prosperity, in which the most generous and the most just ideas and the bold ones have become living realities. You belong to a courageous, persistent, and proud people, which was certainly demonstrated during the war; but they are also a reasonable and practical people. Of that people you are one of the best sons." Spaak added a warning that Lie was entering "a very difficult position" as "the most highly qualified representative of the international spirit." He told him "you will have need of all your qualities. You will be firm without intransigeance; you will be conciliatory without weakness; you will be impartial without exception." Lie, who had sought neither office, privately felt he had been "catapulted" into the Secretary-Generalship. "It was a challenge beyond my wildest dreams," he wrote later of his inner feelings at the time, "but it was a nightmare as well." 1 IN

May I first of all express my thanks to the President of the Assembly for his kind words to me and to my country. General Assembly Official Records, First Session, Part I, 22nd Plenary Meeting, February 2, 1946. i In the Cause of Peace,

p. 17.

34

Acceptance Speech as Secretary-General

You will readily understand my feelings on this occasion. I am filled with gratitude toward you all for the honour you have paid me by electing me your Secretary-General. I ask you to accept my most sincere thanks. It is naturally with deep emotion that I leave the service of my country and my King and enter the service of the international community as a whole. I am profoundly impressed by the serious nature of the task ahead of me. I know that the discharge of my new duties will demand of me everything I shall be able to give. In embarking on my great task, however, I am comforted by the knowledge that, first, the Executive Committee, then the Preparatory Commission, and now the General Assembly have smoothed my path by working out in considerable detail the organization and procedures of the principal organs of the United Nations, including the Secretariat, of which I shall be head. I am more grateful than I can express that so much preliminary work has been done and that such a wide measure of agreement has been reached on so many complex issues. 1 am comforted, too, in the knowledge that I shall, from the outset, have a competent and experienced temporary staff at my disposal. I am greatly impressed by the work of Mr. Jebb 2 and his colleagues and I am most anxious that they should stay with me until I have had time to plan the establishment of my permanent staff. For this reason, I am glad that the General Assembly has authorized me to invite the members of the Secretariat of the Preparatory Commission to continue to serve the United Nations until April 1. In taking over my new task I promise you to do my best. I am the servant of you all. You can count upon my impartial approach to all your problems. I am determined to merit your further confidence through my work for the cause of the United Nations. Certain of your support, I look to the future with confidence. It will be my duty always to act as a true international officer, inspired by the same lofty idea of international cooperation which prompted our great leaders of the last war in taking the initiative in the creation of the United Nations. Your Secretary-General is not called upon to formulate the policy of 2 Gladwyn Jebb, then on loan from the British Government as Executive Secretary of the U N Preparatory Commission, later United Kingdom Permanent Representative to the U N and Ambassador to France.

February 2, 1946

35

the United Nations. The lines of that policy are laid down in the Charter and determined by decisions of the different relevant organs of the United Nations. The task of the Secretariat will be to assist all those organs of the United Nations in preparing and carrying out all decisions taken by them in order to make the policy programme of the Charter a living reality. The purpose of the United Nations is the maintenance of peace in an atmosphere of international security and general well-being. One of the main duties of your Secretariat must be to assist the Security Council in every possible way in the fulfillment of its mission. But there is a close connection between the peace problem and the economic and social conditions of the countries of the world. The creation of better economic and social conditions for all peoples is one of the principal aims of the United Nations. I wish to emphasize that everything within the competence and capacity of the Secretariat will be done to enable the Economic and Social Council to perform its functions. In all this work the Secretariat will remember the suffering and devastation caused by the war. Vast millions of our fellow men live in a state of desperate misery and privation. Food, housing, clothing, and heat must be provided for them, and this can only be achieved in a democratic and peaceful world. Another important duty of the Secretariat will be to assist the Trusteeship Council in its great task to further the progressive development of the Trust Territories towards self-government or independence. It will also be our duty to provide whatever assistance is necessary to the International Court of Justice, to enable it to function in the best possible conditions. Those who gave their lives in order that we may be free, those who lost their homes, those who suffered, and still suffer, from the consequences of war have given us a sacred mandate: that is, to build a firm foundation for the peace of the world. We may find difficulties and obstacles ahead of us. But the harder the task, the higher the prize. It is the future of the whole civilized world which is at stake.

From Opening Speech to the Economic and Social NEW YORK

Council

MAY 25, 1946

THE SECOND SESSION of the Economic and Social Council—its first working session following an organizational meeting in London—was held in the temporary United Nations quarters at Hunter College in the Bronx, New York. Trygve Lie's opening speech reflected the hopes still held at the time that the Council would fulfill the principal policy-making role in economic and social cooperation envisioned at San Francisco. The Cold War's limiting effect upon the Security Council's role in the maintenance of peace was to be no less strongly felt in the much reduced, though still useful role that the Economic and Social Council was able to play in its assigned field in the years following 1946. Economic recovery, economic aid, and international trade policies were all soon to become instruments for both sides in the struggle for power and influence. These trends still lay mainly in the future when Lie spoke. A major excerpt from his speech to the Council follows.

. . . . As it gathers here today, the Economic and Social Council commands the attention of the entire world. Everything that you do will be the object of universal attention. Any failure to fulfill the expectations of the world will likewise be the object of comment and attention. You carry on your shoulders the hope of all humanity. For the first time in the history of international relations, the nations of the world have set up one common body to consider and, when possible, to rectify the economic and social problems that beset mankind. By doing so they have shown their determination to make human welfare one of the first objectives of their collaboration. They have recognized the fact that misery is one of the fundamental causes of war and that their ultimate success in preventing war will depend upon their ability to spread material and social well-being wherever people live. Even in normal times the creation of the Economic and Social Council would have been recognized as an enlightened advance in human relations. Economic and Social Council Official Records, First Year, Second Session, First Meeting, May 25, 1946.

May 25, 1946

37

Today, as humanity struggles in the bog created by the most universal and destructive of all wars, the existence of this body is absolutely necessary to the world. The immediate problem facing us in the economic and social field at this moment is to undo the work of war as far as we can and to make life possible again for the people who have become destitute because of war. Under the leadership of the Economic and Social Council, and with the close collaboration of its allied agencies, it is our determination to confront this job in all its phases quickly and effectively. In the sacrifices and energy required, this task is equal to the all-compelling job of making war itself. Beyond this immediate and critical problem which will burden us for many years, as your President has just said, we have a great composite of other fundamental problems which we have inherited from history. The world looks to the United Nations and to the Economic and Social Council for effective leadership in solving a thousand and one social and economic troubles which mankind has never been able to solve by individual, community, or national effort. Without neglecting the immediate, critical problems, we will undertake this never-ending, every-growing struggle to lessen the basic social and economic troubles of peoples everywhere. We must recognize that this struggle will never end. While old problems will be solved, new problems will arise. The advance of science and the whims of nature and circumstances make that certain. But we are agreed to tackle our problems as we know them with stubborn and relentless energy. We will cross the other bridges when we come to them. In greeting you today, it is not my purpose to explain the full programme of the Economic and Social Council and of its allied and subsidiary organs and agencies. May I just add a few words to what your President has said about the programme before you today. I will only say that, obviously, much of the work until now has been organizational. During the course of this second session of the Economic and Social Council, you will have to perfect your organization as far as possible. Relations between the specialized agencies and the central organs of the United Nations will have to be defined by specific agreements. It is the privileged position of the Economic and Social Council to consider economic and social policy at the highest level and to coordinate world economic and social activities. Thus, the negotiations with the specialized agencies will be of the utmost importance.

38

Speech to the Economic

and Social

Council

Another important mission of the Economic and Social Council during this session will, in my opinion, be to consider the establishment of a world health organization and an organization in charge of refugees and displaced persons. The functions and immediate tasks of the commissions of the Economic and Social Council will have to be stipulated so that these commissions can proceed with important and urgent work. Much preparatory work has been done. The Preparatory Commission and the conferences held in London during the first meeting of the Assembly have provided you with a preliminary outline of your duties and of your organizational structure. Beginning on April 29, the nuclear commissions of the Economic and Social Council met to prepare their reports to the Council. In these reports recommendations are made regarding the work which they suggest should be undertaken in the immediate future, and their relations with other agencies and organizations. I think you will find their reports constructive and factual, brimming with practical suggestions for immediate and long-term action in many fields. At the same time, they are characterized by a degree of imagination and enlightenment worthy of the aims and purposes of the United Nations. It may be suggested that some groups have exhibited too much imagination. I would reply that this is a time for fresh thoughts and new ideas. It is also the time to revive good ideas which have been suppressed in the past by reaction and prejudice. We want people to feel free to express, and to fight for, these thoughts and ideas. . . .

POLITICAL INITIATIVES OF THE SECRETARY-GENERAL APRIL TO SEPTEMBER

1. Legal Memorandum

1946

on Question of Retaining

Iranian Case on Security Council

Agenda

A P R I L 16, 1946

DURING HIS FIRST MONTHS in office Trygve Lie was fully engaged by the problems of creating a temporary headquarters in New York and recruiting a Secretariat. Nevertheless, he took several significant steps in the development of the political role of his office. T h e first question to be settled was the extent of the Secretary-General's right to participate in General Assembly and Security Council discussion of issues before them. T h e Preparatory Commission's provisional rules of procedure for the Security Council were silent on the subject except for Rule 15, which simply repeated verbatim Article 99 of the Charter. The provisional rules for the Assembly provided that the Secretary-General might propose for the agenda "all items . . . which he deems necessary to put before the Assembly." They also recognized his right to speak at any time upon any question subject to the proviso that it should be "upon invitation of the President." As Lie was to point out later, this proviso could be used to limit his freedom of initiative. T h e President of the first Assembly, PaulHenri Spaak, he recalled, twice failed to give him the floor in the Assembly's General (steering) Committee when he requested it. 1 Lie's first initiative in the Security Council was a memorandum on the question of retaining the Iranian case on the Council's agenda. It was submitted on April 16, 1946, the day after Iran informed the Council that it wished to withdraw its complaint against the Soviet Union over the latter's delay in withdrawing its troops after the war and over its pressure f o r oil concessions and autonomy for the province of Azerbaijan. The Iranian letter followed assurances f r o m the Soviet Union that the withdrawal of its troops was well under way and would be completed by May 6. Lie's memoSecurity Council Official Records, First Year, 1st Series, 33rd Meeting, April 16, 1946. i In the Cause of Peace, p. 87.

40

Political

Initiatives

randum argued the legal case against retaining the question on the Council's agenda once both parties to the dispute had requested its removal. This did not please the United States, United Kingdom, and their supporters on the Council. They mistrusted Soviet intentions in the area, had their own interests, especially oil, to defend there, and wanted the Council to remain seized of the question, at least for a while longer. In presenting his memorandum Lie was cautious in his procedure, though the substance of his memorandum made his move a bold enough assertion of his independent position as Secretary-General, in this case placing him on the side of the minority on a controversial issue. Lie did not address or read his memorandum to the Council. He addressed it to the President, who had an interpreter read it. The memorandum was referred, at the President's suggestion, to the Council's "Committee of Experts." This was composed of advisers to the delegates. Naturally the same majority as on the Council (eight) rejected Lie's legal arguments and found others of their own to support the position of their Governments. The minority (U.S.S.R., France, and Poland) agreed with Lie. The next month Iran reported that the Soviet withdrawal was complete. Thereafter the Council never met again on the Soviet-Iranian dispute, but it remained year after year on the list of matters with which the Security Council was "seized." The legal arguments on both sides of the Iranian agenda question turned out to have little practical significance for the future work of the Security Council. Lie's position, uncharacteristically, tended to be strict constructionist in its interpretation of those Charter provisions relevant to the Security Council's procedures. So far as the Iranian case was concerned Lie's main motive was, in any case, political. "The United Nations, I felt, should aim to settle disputes, not inflame them," he wrote later. "If both Iran and the U.S.S.R. agreed that their quarrel had been resolved, the Security Council should not indicate the contrary." 2 The constitutional significance of Lie's intervention did not relate to the Council but to the doctrine of implied powers of the office of SecretaryGeneral. It was the first of a series of steps toward building an accepted role of major political influence for the office, based on both the letter and the spirit of Articles 97, 98, 99, and 100, read together. Some of the reactions at the time to Trygve Lie's intervention are of special interest in the light of subsequent history, when positions were to be reversed. The United States representative said nothing in the Council about the Secretary-General's right to express his views, but in a subsequent press conference Secretary of State Byrnes was quoted as indicating his opinion that Lie had exceeded his powers. Some Western background briefings to correspondents, especially in Washington, were even more critical. When the Committee of Experts first took up the question of the SecretaryGeneral's rights in the course of amending the Council's rules of procedure later that spring, the United States member said he was "not at all sure that 2

Ibid., p. 80.

April to September

1946

41

the Charter can be construed as authorizing the Secretary-Gencral to make comments on political and substantive matters." 3 In the Council on April 16, when the President, Quo Tai-Chi of China, had seemed about to put the agenda question to the vote without waiting for the Committee of Experts to report on Lie's memorandum, the Polish delegate protested that the Secretary-General was "invested by the Charter with special and important powers and that we cannot vote now as if his opinion did not count or exist." When Quo Tai-Chi replied, he agreed to wait for the experts' report but he also quoted Article 97's description of the Secretary-General as "the chief administrative officer of the Organization," an implied rebuke to Lie for intervening in debate on a substantive question. This elicited the following comment by Andrei Gromyko of the U.S.S.R.: "As regards the functions of the Secretary-General . . . these are, of course, more serious and more weighty than was indicated just now. It is sufficient to recall one Article of the Charter to realize the heavy responsibilities incumbent upon the Secretary-General. Article 99 states: 'The Secretary-General may bring to the attention of the Security Council any matter which in his opinion may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security.' Thus the Secretary-General has all the more right, and an even greater obligation, to make statements on various aspects of the questions considered by the Security Council." * In the Committee of Experts the Soviet member found a proposed rule of procedure similar to the Assembly's on the Secretary-General's right to participate in the debate "insufficient, since it gave the Secretary-General the right of intervening only upon the invitation of the President." 5 Soon all the members of the Committee of Experts came around to this point of view and the Security Council unanimously adopted on June 6, 1946, a rule stating flatly that "The Secretary-General, or his deputy acting in his behalf, may make either oral or written statements to the Security Council concerning any question under consideration by it." At the same time the Council adopted another rule providing that the Secretary-General might be appointed "as rapporteur for a specified question." However, the Security Council, unlike the League Council, seldom resorted to the rapporteur system. When the General Assembly revised its rules of procedure in 1947, the rule concerning the Secretary-General's participation in debate was amended to remove the condition requiring the President's invitation. Thus the Secretary-General's right of initiative in proposing questions for consideration and in expressing his own views on any matter was firmly established after a brief period of hesitation.

3 Ibid., p. 87. ••Security Council Official Records, First Year, 1st Series, 33rd meeting, April 16, 1946. s In the Cause of Peace, p. 87.

42

Political

Initiatives

I feel it desirable to present to you my views with respect to the legal aspects of the question of the retention of the Iranian case on the agenda of the Security Council. The decision taken by the Council in this matter may institute an important precedent for the future, and it seems to me advisable to consider it most carefully in order to avoid a precedent which may cause later difficulties. I submit the views herein expressed to you for such use as you may care to make of them. On March 18, 1946, the Iranian representative brought to the attention of the Security Council, pursuant to Article 35, paragraph 1, of the Charter, a dispute between Iran and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, "the continuance of which is likely to endanger the maintenance of international peace and security." On April 4 the Council resolved to defer further proceedings on the Iranian appeal until May 6. On April 15 the Iranian representative informed the Security Council that the Iranian Government "withdraws its complaint from the Security Council." Previously, the U.S.S.R. representative had requested "that the Iranian question should be removed from the agenda of the Security Council." The issue considered yesterday in the Security Council is whether the question can properly be retained on the agenda in view of the fact that both parties now have requested that it be removed. The powers of the Security Council are set forth in Chapter VI of the Charter in the following manner: Under Article 33 the Council may call upon the parties to a dispute to settle it by negotiation, enquiry, et cetera. Under Article 34 it may investigate any dispute or situation which might lead to international friction or give rise to a dispute. Under Article 36 it may recommend appropriate procedures for the settlement of a dispute under Article 33 or of a situation of like nature. Under Article 37 the Council may decide to take action under Article 36 if it deems that the continuance of a dispute is in fact likely to endanger the maintenance of international peace and security. Finally, under Article 38 it may, if all the parties to any dispute so request, make recommendations to the parties with a view to pacific settlement. It is to be noted that the Security Council can be seized of a dispute or situation in one of three ways: ( 1 ) under Article 35 by a State; ( 2 ) under Article 34 by the Security Council itself; ( 3 ) under Article 99 by the Secretary-General.

April to September

1946

43

In the present case, Article 99 is obviously not applicable. The Security Council has taken no action under Article 34, that is, it has not ordered an investigation, which is the only action possible under that Article. It is therefore not applicable at this time and cannot become applicable until an investigation is ordered. The Council was originally seized of the dispute under Article 35, paragraph 1. Now that Iran has withdrawn its complaint, the Council can take no action under Articles 33, 36, 37, or 38, since the necessary conditions for applying these Articles (namely a dispute between two or more parties) do not exist. The only Article under which it can act at all is Article 34. But that Article, as has already been said, can only be invoked by a vote to investigate, which has not been taken or even suggested in this case. It is therefore arguable that following withdrawal by the Iranian representative, the question is automatically removed from the agenda, unless: (a) The Security Council votes an investigation under Article 34, or (b) A Member brings it up as a situation or dispute under Article 35, or (c) The Council proceeds under Article 36, paragraph 1, which would appear to require a preliminary finding that a dispute exists under Article 33, or that there is "a situation of like nature." An argument which may be made against the view of automatic removal from the agenda is that once a matter is brought to the attention of the Council, it is no longer a matter solely between the original parties, but one in which the Council collectively has an interest, as representing the whole of the United Nations. This may well be true; but it would appear that the only way in which, under the Charter, the Council can exercise that interest is under Article 34, or under Article 36, paragraph 1. Since the Council has not chosen to invoke Article 34 in the only way in which it can be invoked, that is, through voting an investigation, and has not chosen to invoke Article 36, paragraph 1, by deciding that a dispute exists under Article 33 or that there is a situation of like nature, it may well be that there is no way in which it can remain seized of the matter.

44

Political

2. Support

Initiatives

for Universality

—Statement

of

in the Security

LAKE SUCCESS, N.Y.

Membership Council

AUGUST 28, 1946

SOON AFTER the Security Council had affirmed his rights of intervention in debate, Trygve Lie used them to speak in support of moving as rapidly as possible toward universality of membership for all nations (except Franco Spain). Each of the first three Secretaries-General consistently supported universality, applying the principle also to the related question of the representation of China after that arose in 1950. Lie's first statement on the subject was made in the Council on August 28, 1946, when the applications of Afghanistan, Albania, Iceland, Ireland, Mongolian People's Republic, Portugal, Sweden, and Jordan were up for action. The Western Powers were against admitting either Albania or the Mongolian People's Republic at that time. The Soviet Union opposed Ireland, Portugal, and Jordan because it had no diplomatic relations with them. Herschel Johnson, sitting for the United States, expressed willingness to waive Western doubts about Albania and the Mongolian People's Republic "to accelerate advancement of the universality of membership" if the Council would recommend all the applicants for membership in a group. Gromyko opposed this for the U.S.S.R., insisting that the Council must consider and act on each applicant separately. These positions were soon to be reversed, with the Soviet Union supporting "en bloc" admission and the Western Powers adopting Gromyko's earlier argument. The ensuing deadlock, which at one time or another kept 16 nations outside the door, was finally broken in 1955. After that, all applicants were admitted except the divided States of Germany, Korea, and Vietnam.

Trygve Lie's statement of August 28, 1946 was made in support of the United States proposal, which was dropped after Gromyko opposed it.

I think it may be useful at this point to call the attention of the Security Council to a number of pertinent facts connected with the question of new Members. You are confronted by a question which affects the f u Security Council Official Records, First Year, 1st Series, 54th Meeting, Aucust 28, 1946.

April to September 1946

45

ture of the United Nations and your decision is a serious and important one. For the first time since the United Nations took form as an organization, we are being asked to increase our numbers beyond the original fifty-one Member States. It has been stated repeatedly that we desire the active collaboration of all peace-loving States which are willing to accept the obligations contained in the Charter and which are able and willing to carry out those obligations. This principle was laid down in the Moscow Declaration on October 30, 1943. And it was reaffirmed at Teheran on December 1, 1943. At Dumbarton Oaks it was again affirmed that the United Nations should be open to all peace-loving States. At San Francisco, this principle was incorporated in Article 4 of the Charter. This states that membership in the United Nations is open to all other peace-loving States which accept the obligations contained in the Charter and, in the judgment of the Organization, are able and willing to carry out these obligations. The principles governing the admission of new Members were thoroughly defined in specific terms by the Potsdam Declaration of August 2, 1945. The three Powers which signed that declaration agreed that five ex-enemy States should be entitled to membership when they have established democratic Governments and those Governments had concluded peace treaties with the victorious Powers. It was also stated in the Potsdam Declaration that the three Powers would support applications from the States which had remained neutral during the war, provided they fulfilled the conditions set forth in Article 4 of the Charter. A single exception was made in the case of Spain under the present Spanish Government. It was decided at that time, more than one year ago, that the present Spanish Government which had been founded with the support of the Axis Powers did not possess the qualifications necessary to justify membership in the United Nations. I do not quarrel with that decision in any way. The situation of all other established Governments in the world seems to be clear. I should like to add this general remark. Many of the great tasks facing the United Nations remain to be accomplished. It is only one of our purposes to avoid war. If we are to fulfill our purpose, the United Nations must work for the improvement of mankind in every phase of life all over the world for time to come. This work will demand the active support and cooperation of every respectable nation and of every decent man and woman in the entire world. As I have already pointed out, the founding Members of the United Nations and all the

46

Political Initiatives

Great Powers which form part of our Organization have agreed, on numerous occasions, that the United Nations must be as universal as possible. This is one subject on which there has never been a serious difference of opinion. For this reason, in my capacity as Secretary-General of the United Nations, I wish to support the admission to membership of all the States which are applying today.

3. Implied Powers Under Article —Statement

in the Security

L A K E SUCCESS, N.Y.

99

Council

S E P T E M B E R 20, 1946

As Dag Hammarskjold and others were later to point out, the right conferred on the Secretary-General under Article 99 of the Charter "carries with it, by necessary implication, a broad discretion to conduct inquiries and to engage in informal diplomatic activity in regard to matters which may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security." 1 Trygve Lie first asserted this implied power in the Security Council September 20, 1946, when the Council was considering the complaint brought by the Ukrainian S.S.R. against Greece over border incidents, alleging threats against Albania and British interference in Greek internal affairs. The United States had proposed that the Security Council establish an investigating commission of three individuals to be nominated by the Secretary-General and confirmed by the Council, to investigate the facts along Greece's whole northern frontier with Albania, Bulgaria, and Yugoslavia. The Soviet Union announced its opposition to the plan, which doomed it. Before the vote was taken, however, the Secretary-General spoke as follows.

Just a few words to make clear my own position as Secretary-General and the rights of this office under the Charter (italics added). Should the proposal of the United States representative not be carried, I hope that the Council will understand that the Secretary-General must reserve his Security Council Official Records, First Year, 70th Meeting, September 20, 1946. 1 Dag Hammarskjold; Servant of Peace, A Selection of His Speeches and Statements, edited by Wilder Foote, Harper and Row, 1962, p. 335.

April to September 1946

47

right to make such enquiries or investigations as he may think necessary, in order to determine whether or not he should consider bringing any aspect of this matter to the attention of the Council under the provisions of the Charter.

Once again the reaction of Andrei Gromyko, speaking for the Soviet Union, is of special interest in the light of later history. Although Lie was reserving the right to make an investigation similar to that which the U.S.S.R. was about to vote against, Gromyko immediately spoke as follows: "I think that Mr. Lie was right in raising the question of his rights. It seems to me that in this case, as in all other cases, the Secretary-General must act. I have no doubt that he will do so in accordance with the rights and powers of the Secretary-General as defined in the Charter of the United Nations." No other member of the Council indicated dissent from this view. Lie did not immediately move to exercise the option for which he had thus established a solid base in the record. Perhaps he hoped the Balkan peace treaty negotiations then under way might lead to some easing of tensions in the area. When, by December, the situation worsened instead, it was Greece's turn to complain to the Security Council. This time unanimity was achieved for a Commission of Investigation composed of representatives of all eleven Security Council members.

Introduction

to the First Annual

Report

J U N E 26, 1946

ARTICLE 98 of the Charter provides that the Secretary-General "shall make an annual report to the General Assembly on the work of the Organization." This placed on a constitutional basis a practice established by the League of Nations Assembly. The League reports were factual accounts and did not include any expression of views by the Secretary-General on questions of peace and international politics. In its report the United Nations Preparatory Commission seemed to consider the annual report one of the Secretary-General's "specific duties of a more narrowly administrative character," in other words, a mere continuation of the League practice. However, the Commission also had this to say: "The United Nations cannot prosper, nor can its aims be realized, without the active and steadfast support of the peoples of the world . . . the Secretary-General, more than anyone else, will stand for the United Nations as a whole. In the eyes of the world, no less than in the eyes of his own staff, he must embody the principles and ideals of the Charter to which the Organization seeks to give effect." 1 The respective chapters of Trygve Lie's first annual report gave a straightforward factual account of the work of the principal organs of the United Nations. But he employed his Introduction not only to summarize the highlights of the work but to speak "for the United Nations as a whole" of the basic political and economic problems before the Organization. He supplemented his Introduction, dated in early summer, by an oral report in the General Assembly's opening general debate in October. The next year— 1947—he confined his Introduction to a policy statement on the problems facing the United Nations, supplemented again by a longer oral statement in the Assembly. From then on the Secretary-General's Introduction to his Annual Report was firmly established as a kind of annual "State of the Union" message on the United Nations in world affairs. Frequently it served as a subject for debate and comment in the opening general debates of Assembly sessions. Thus in Trygve Lie's first year in office a link was forged between the responsibilities and duties of the Secretary-General implied by Article 99 with one of the specific functions assigned to him by Article 98. In these reports the Secretary-General sought to avoid partisanship in favor of a balanced and objective support of Charter purposes and General Assembly Official Records, First Session, Supplement (Doc A/65). 1 Report of the Preparatory Commission, December 23, 1945 (H.M. Stationary Office, London, 1946).

April to September 1946

49

of the collective interests of the whole membership, as he saw them. Inevitably this involved taking stands from time to time on issues which found Member Governments divided. This did not always please individual Governments in their pursuit of more narrow national or ideological interest, but their criticisms were to be directed at the stands taken. The practice itself was not challenged.

The idea which first took formal shape at the Moscow Conference in 1943—the idea of a world organization for the maintenance of peace and security and the promotion of the welfare of humanity built around the wartime union of free peoples in defence of civilization—has become a reality. At Dumbarton Oaks and Yalta, and finally at the great San Francisco Conference a year ago, the Charter of the United Nations was hammered out. As a result of long and arduous work, detailed plans for the working of the Organization set up under the Charter were then drawn up by the Preparatory Commission and its Executive Committee. These plans and the programmes of work recommended were adopted by the General Assembly at the first part of the first session, held in London in January and February of this year, when the Organization came into effective operation. This report deals with the first few months following the close of the London session. The chapters which follow give a detailed account of developments in each of the main fields of the Organization's activities. In this Introduction I shall confine myself to a brief summary of work accomplished and of problems and difficulties encountered. The record of the past few months has been one of intense activity on the part of the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council, and their dependent Committees and Commissions. The Security Council has held forty-nine meetings since it was established last January and has dealt with six concrete issues relating to the maintenance of peace and security which have been brought before it under Chapter VI of the Charter. Much of its time has been occupied by questions of procedure. Although preoccupation with such questions was to be expected where the highest issues of policy are involved, other developments in the Security Council's debates present disquieting aspects to which I shall refer below.

50

Political

Initiatives

Two bodies of vital importance attached to the Security Council—the Military Staff Committee and the Atomic Energy Commission—are actively pursuing their tasks. The Military Staff Committee is preparing the basis for the agreements provided for under Article 47 of the Charter upon which will rest the system of military enforcement at the disposal of the Security Council. Still more crucial is the work of the Atomic Energy Commission, upon the success of which, indeed, as emphasized by all its members, the entire issue of world peace or world destruction may depend. Let me turn now to the work of the Economic and Social Council. While the Security Council and its organs stand guard against threats to the peace, the Economic and Social Council, to quote President Truman, "mobilizes the constructive forces of mankind for the victories of peace." The five nuclear Commissions set up by the Council in February—the Commission on Human Rights (with its Sub-Commission on the Status of Women), the Economic and Employment Commission, the Temporary Social Commission, the Statistical Commission, and the Temporary Transport and Communications Commission—met in April and May and drew up recommendations concerning the permanent organization and the programme of work in their respective fields. A Special Committee on the much-discussed question of the form of the international organization to deal with refugees and displaced persons produced an agreed scheme after two-months' consideration. These various reports formed the basis of the discussions at the second session of the Economic and Social Council lasting from May 25 to June 21, and decisions were reached on all of them. The terms of reference and the constitution of the permanent technical organs of the Council have been approved. A Sub-Commission to study and report on the conditions and needs of devastated areas has been set up and asked to submit a preliminary report in time for consideration by the General Assembly in September. At the same session of the Economic and Social Council, draft agreements were negotiated with three of the most important specialized agencies—the International Labour Office, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization—with a view to bringing these agencies into relationship with the United Nations in accordance with Articles 57 and 63 of the Charter.

April to September 1946

51

When these draft agreements come before it, the General Assembly will no doubt wish to examine carefully whether adequate provision has been made for coordination in administrative and budgetary matters as well as in regard to the efficient distribution of work and the over-all direction of policy. The World Health Conference, which was called upon the initiative of the Economic and Social Council at its first session in London, is in session at the time of writing and is preparing for the creation of a World Health Organization, the draft constitution of which was prepared by a Technical Preparatory Committee in April. Because of the special character of its work the World Health Conference is being attended not only be delegates of the fifty-one United Nations but also by observers from fifteen non-member countries and from the Allied Control Authorities in Germany, Japan, and Southern Korea. Preparations for holding a meeting of the Preparatory Committee for the International Trade Conference in October are under way. In the same month there will be a meeting of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs which has taken over the functions of the League's Advisory Committee in this field. Completion of the structure of the United Nations Organization has been delayed by the fact that the Trusteeship Council has not yet been brought into being. I had hoped that some progress toward the organization of this Council might have been achieved by this date through the submission, for consideration by the General Assembly, of trusteeship agreements. This, in fact, has not transpired. Last February, the General Assembly invited States which are administering mandated territories to negotiate, in concert with the other States directly concerned, agreements by means of which the mandated territories would be placed under the Trusteeship system, with a view to submitting such agreements for approval preferably not later than during the second part of the General Assembly's first session. I have reminded the States concerned of this resolution, pointing out that unless agreements can be submitted by that date, there may be a delay of another year before the Trusteeship Council can be set up. On the basis of the common plan approved by the General Assembly in February, and endorsed by the Assembly of the League of Nations in April, detailed arrangements have been made with the Swiss Confederation and with the League authorities concerning the transfer to the

52

Political

Initiatives

United Nations of the League buildings in Geneva and other League assets. An Interim Arrangement on Privileges and Immunities for the United Nations in Switzerland, based upon the general convention approved by the General Assembly, has likewise been concluded. Acting upon the instructions of the General Assembly and the Economic and Social Council, I have arranged, in agreement with the Secretary-General of the League, for the assumption by the United Nations of various functions hitherto performed by the League and for the employment by the United Nations Secretariat of certain categories of experienced League staff. Title to the League properties will pass to the United Nations after July 31, 1946, and decisions will have to be taken by the General Assembly regarding the use to which these properties are to be put. I propose to visit Geneva in July and hope as a result of this visit to be in a position to make certain suggestions on this matter. Attention should moreover be drawn to the report of the Negotiating Committee which will be submitted to the Assembly. Arrangements for obtaining the use of the Peace Palace at The Hague for the International Court of Justice were successfully concluded by the Negotiating Committee at an early date and the International Court of Justice held its inaugural meeting there in April. The task of building up an efficient and truly international Secretariat has been immensely complicated by the speed with which the recruitment of staff has had to be accomplished under pressure of the activities described above. It is a task that requires much time for its proper accomplishment. We have had no such respite as the Administration of the League of Nations enjoyed in the first months of its existence. The Secretariat of the United Nations now numbers about twelve hundred. It has been organized in accordance with the recommendations of the General Assembly, to cover every phase of the activities of the Organization. It has performed creditably in view of the strain exerted upon it by the multiplicity of the meetings which have been held, the transfer of its working quarters on two occasions, the physical hardships induced by lack of permanent housing, and the lack of experience of a large part of the personnel, recruited from all parts of the world. Attempts have been made to secure the best possible personnel but the Organization has not always been able to acquire the services of such people at short notice. While several Governments have cooperated

April to September 1946

53

by lending skilled staff, Governments have not, in all cases, felt able to release persons whose skilled services were urgently required in the Secretariat. Inevitably, it has been impossible as yet to ensure a proper balance in the geographical distribution of posts. The painful process of trial and error in working out appropriate administrative patterns has been accentuated by the factors mentioned above. Every effort is being made to rectify our deficiencies. By the autumn of this year I believe that improvements will be apparent. Within a year a really satisfactory organization should be in existence. It may be noted that personnel specialists are now on missions in various parts of the world to organize interim machinery for the recruitment of qualified candidates from countries not now represented, or still under-represented, in the Secretariat. The move from London to New York, a great city suffering from the most serious housing crisis in its history, was a further source of complication in recruiting and organizing the Secretariat and enormously increased the cost of running the organization. Furthermore, in spite of much goodwill on the part of the officials and private individuals, it has been attended by serious difficulties of an administrative character. With the help of the Federal and Municipal authorities, fairly satisfactory temporary accommodation for the Secretariat and the main organs of the United Nations was, it is true, found at Hunter College; and complete arrangements have now been made for the move to larger and more suitable quarters at Lake Success in July and August, as well as for the holding of the General Assembly at Flushing in September. But all this has been accomplished only with the utmost difficulty and at great expense, and serious problems remain in regard to the housing of staff and delegations and in regard to the procurement of supplies. It must be observed, too, that an important question remains unsettled between the Organization and the United States authorities, namely, the regime of privileges and immunities, affecting the staff of the Organization. Since this question involves the fiscal position of the members of the Secretariat, its solution is a matter of urgency. While the problems directly affecting the Secretariat and the installation of the Organization are naturally of particular concern to me, I also find it desirable to call attention to some broader issues. The final paragraph of the Introduction to the Report of the Preparatory Commission reads as follows: "If by its early actions the new Organization can capture the imagination of the world it will surely not

54

Political

Initiatives

belie the expectations of those who see in it the last chance of saving themselves and their children from the scourge of war." Where do we stand now, six months after these words were written? Has the United Nations succeeded in capturing the imagination and in harnessing the enthusiasm of the peoples of the world? I, for one, do not feel that it has done so in the degree that might be hoped for. What is the explanation, and what measures can, or should be, taken? Part of the explanation lies no doubt in the inevitable slowness of United Nations proceedings at this stage which, in turn, is due to preoccupation with matters of procedure and organization. Much could be done to "educate" public opinion to appreciate more fully the significance of the often undramatic but fundamental work that is being performed, and the fact that many of our difficulties are of a temporary character. The world is in the midst of a giant post-war upheaval, its economic life is dislocated, many regions still present a picture of distress and destruction, and many political frontiers and forms of government, as well as the terms of the peace settlement, are still undecided. It is too often overlooked that while such conditions remain, the working of the Charter system will inevitably be affected. In this educative process, the Secretariat can certainly contribute, and I trust that, with the assistance of Members, the work of the Public Information Services may be substantially expanded in the near future. I should wish it to give attention to bringing home the immense promise of the work already accomplished in the economic and social fields, to which public interest has not yet been fully awakened. I should wish it also to correct certain widespread misunderstandings of the Charter and the functions and limitations of the Organization as laid down in that document. The United Nations was not designed to perform the functions of a Peace Conference nor was it equipped to act as a referee between the Great Powers. It was founded upon the basic assumption that there would be agreement among the permanent members of the Security Council upon major issues. The fact that the Charter gave the right of veto to each of these permanent Members imposes upon them an obligation to seek agreement among themselves. Many of the issues which have come before the Security Council have arisen from inability to reach such agreement. While the United Nations must take responsibility for its success or failure to fulfill its functions as laid down in the Charter, it cannot prop-

April to September 1946

55

erly be held responsible for inability to achieve goals which by the terms of the Charter may not be within its reach. I should be failing in my duty, in presenting this report, if I did not emphasize the absolute necessity that the Powers should seek agreement among themselves, in a spirit of mutual understanding and a will to compromise, and not abandon their efforts until such agreement has been reached. Misunderstanding of our problems and discouragement with the results so far achieved may also be attributed, in no small degree, to a lack of historical perspective in surveying the world as we find it today. Without excusing our failure to settle our problems more rapidly, it must be understood that any war on a world-scale is bound to bring vast problems in its wake and that many of these problems demand careful and methodical treatment. It is unquestionably better that time be employed in the proper settlement of controversies when hasty agreement could only lead to future trouble. We may find some source of encouragement and inspiration for the successful settlement of our difficulties, by recalling that in certain important respects the international situation in 1919 and 1920 was more serious than it is today. And the very existence of the United Nations is now a factor of inestimable value. If anyone doubts this, he has only to ask himself what would now be the state of relationships between peoples and the prospects for the peace of the world if the United Nations were not in being. There is no cause for discouragement, still less for pessimism. But are there not nevertheless very real dangers facing us? Has not the lively desire of all peoples and governments to establish the authority of the United Nations, and to combine their efforts in achieving the victories of peace, sometimes been impeded by a lack of mutual trust among the Members of the Organization? The United Nations is no stronger than the collective will of the nations that support it. Of itself it can do nothing. It is a machinery through which the nations can cooperate. It can be used and developed in the light of its activities and experience, to the untold benefit of humanity, or it can be discarded and broken. As in the control of atomic power, the choice is between life and death. The failure of the United Nations would mean the failure of peace, the triumph of destruction. As the Preparatory Commission foresaw, the Secretary-General in certain circumstances must speak for the Organization as a whole. It is with a deep sense of responsibility that I appeal to the Members of the

56

Supplementary Oral Report

United Nations, and more especially to those Powers which have special rights and obligations under the Charter, to ponder the dangers to which I have called attention and to exert every effort to overcome them. There is much that the Secretariat can do, and, given the approval and cooperation of the Members and the voting of the necessary credits, it will not fail. But upon the Members of the Organization lies the ultimate responsibility; upon them it ultimately depends whether the United Nations fulfills the hope that is placed in it. TRYGVE L I E ,

Secretary-General June 26, 1946

Supplementary

Oral

before the General FLUSHING, N.Y.

Report Assembly

O C T O B E R 24,

1946

The Secretary-General's report to the General Assembly was finished on June 30 (document A / 6 5 ) . As much has happened between that date and the opening of the General Assembly, I have found it desirable to give the Assembly an oral, supplementary report. Since June 1945, when the Charter was signed, the United Nations has led a wandering existence. From San Francisco the journey led to London, where the Preparatory Commission began its work in September of last year. The United Nations' scene of operations remained in London for six months, concentrated in one place, namely, Church House. It is an odd fact that, until now, the United Nations has had its longest stay in any one place at Church House, London. In March we began to establish the Organization in New York. First we were at Hunter College in the Bronx, then, from the middle of August, at Lake Success. General Assembly Official Records, First Session, Part II, 35th Plenary Meeting, October 24, 1946.

October 24, 1946

57

In these circumstances it has obviously not been possible to organize the United Nations Secretariat as satisfactorily as I should have wished. At the same time that circumstances have compelled the United Nations to lead this wandering existence, there has been such a great interest in international cooperation, during the year 1945-1946, that all international organizations have been subjected to a severe test. This has been particularly true of the central organization, which must lend assistance to all types of international work. Seven international organizations, in addition to the Paris Peace Conference, have held congresses or conferences with the assistance of the United Nations Secretariat. No less than twenty-eight additional international conferences have been held during this period. As far as the United Nations' own work is concerned, there have been frequent meetings of the Security Council and the Economic and Social Council and there have been meetings of an additional seventeen bodies, under our auspices or with our assistance. The main difficulties which we have met, as far as practical facilities are concerned, have been in connection with office space and the housing of the staff. I have already explained the consequences of the building shortage in my main report to the Assembly. As you know, we are now occupying the leased portion of the Sperry Plant at Lake Success. An additional 100,000 square feet is now being converted to our use. We have retained our two offices in Manhattan. In addition, leases have been signed for premises for the Headquarters Commission and for 64,000 square feet of space in the Empire State Building for delegation offices. The total amount of office space which has thus been made available, together with the additional space to be occupied at Lake Success, is still far from sufficient. Moreover, some of the space which we now have is unsatisfactory. It is difficult, for obvious reasons, to transform a factory into an office building. After considering this situation carefully, I have decided that our problem can be solved satisfactorily only by the creation of an additional United Nations office building, conveniently located and specially designed for our purposes. Accordingly, I shall ask you, at the appropriate time, for authorization to construct an additional temporary building. Of the four housing projects which I mentioned in my earlier report,

58

Supplementary

Oral

Report

one, situated at Great Neck, has been partially completed and occupied. The three larger ones are still under construction and will not be ready for several months. I have also been able to lease from the United States Government the Lido Beach Hotel for temporary accommodation. The operation of the Secretariat during the period since it was transferred to New York has necessarily been affected by the problem of recruiting properly qualified personnel. The number of the staff at headquarters has increased with the growth of the work, and at October 15 stands at 2,516 at New York and 476 in London and Geneva offices, making a total of 2,992. A detailed report will be given to the Fifth Committee when it begins to study the budget. In recruiting staff we have attempted constantly to observe the policy of broad geographical distribution, and there are now citizens of forty Member States serving on the Secretariat. Gradually, we have increased the geographical distribution in the higher positions. In the junior grades, we have deliberately followed a policy of local recruitment as a temporary measure. In the interest of efficient work, and at the same time to attain a proper degree of geographical distribution, I plan to continue the process of building up the permanent staff of the Secretariat over a period of one or two years. In connection with the general problem of personnel I may mention that some dissatisfaction has been expressed with salaries in the lower brackets. This must be viewed in the light of rising living costs in the United States. Our problems, as far as mechanical services and accommodation are concerned, are out of all proportion to those of any previous international organization. A resolution adopted at the first part of the General Assembly's first session fixed the amount of the working capital fund at twenty-five million dollars. It also determined the provisional scale of advances to the working capital fund to be made by the Member States. Of the total of twenty-five million dollars the sum of $23,500,000 or 94 per cent, has now been received. Of the fifty-one Member States, thirty-eight have paid in full, six have paid in part, and seven have not paid any contribution. The General Assembly may wish to consider means for ensuring the punctual payment of contributions in the future. While there has been no shortage of funds during the financial year it is only fair and desirable

October 24, 1946

59

that advances and contributions from all Member States should be forthcoming when they are due. One of the signs of vitality of international cooperation has been the creation of specialized agencies for the performance of specific operating tasks. We already have the International Labour Organisation, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, the Provisional International Civil Aviation Organization, the International Monetary Fund, and the International Bank. With the first four of these, the Economic and Social Council has negotiated agreements providing for general coordination of their activities and for bringing them into effective working relationship with the United Nations itself. The World Health Organization should soon be constituted. In addition, I trust that we shall have the International Trade Organization and the International Refugee Organization. I have proceeded on the self-evident proposition that the United Nations should display all possible understanding and helpfulness in regard to the needs of the various specialized agencies. On the other hand, it has been my policy to avoid "overlapping" and any wasteful use of men and money. It is, however, the privilege of the Member States to decide what specialized agencies they want to establish and to determine what functions they shall have. The time is perhaps now approaching when it may be proper to ask ourselves whether the family of specialized agencies is not already large enough. The larger the number of agencies the greater is the financial burden on Member Governments and the greater are the dangers of overlapping and duplication. As new problems arise it would be well to consider whether it would not be better to assign them either to the Secretariat of the United Nations or to one of the organizations which now exist, rather than to create new machinery. Plans are now being developed for a considerable expansion in the activities of the United Nations Department of Public Information in order to improve the flow of information to Member Nations, and particularly to those countries which are located outside North America. We plan to establish information centres at strategic news centres throughout the world. In addition, a broadcasting network is being developed to enable people in all parts of the world to receive broadcasts

60

Supplementary

Oral

Report

from our headquarters. Thus, we hope to reach millions of readers and listeners who, at the present time, receive little or no news regarding our activities. I expect to submit to you later during this session plans for a permanent short-wave broadcasting station. I have been asked repeatedly, since arriving in the United States, about the Convention on Privileges and Immunities. Members of delegations and of the Secretariat have suffered certain inconveniences because neither the Convention on Privileges and Immunities nor the draft convention with the United States, relating to the headquarters, has yet been made effective in the United States. Certain immunities and privileges are now in effect under American law. The Secretariat has proposed to the United States State Department that other necessary privileges for representatives and Secretariat personnel should be put into effect for an interim period, by executive agreement. The State Department has informed me that it is not in a position to commit the United States Government to extend these privileges and immunities. However, in specific cases relating to official acts, it has undertaken to commend requests by the Secretary-General to the sympathetic consideration of the appropriate authorities. I hope that every other Member of the United Nations will proceed, with all possible speed, to ratify the Convention on Privileges and Immunities, as has already been done by the United Kingdom. I have already reported to the General Assembly that an interim arrangement on privileges and immunities of the United Nations in Switzerland was concluded with the Swiss Federal Council in the early summer. In the minutes attached to that arrangement, the Swiss representatives made a reservation that "in the event of new agreements being concluded, problems likely to affect the safeguarding of Swiss interests would have to be reconsidered." When I visited Switzerland in August, I took the opportunity to discuss this reservation with the authorities. I felt that it was impossible for me to make any recommendation concerning the future use of the United Nations buildings in Geneva until and unless all doubts were removed that the United Nations would have the necessary freedom to use those buildings for the meetings of any of its organs or for the work of any of its services. The discussions begun in Berne with the President and the Head of the Federal Political Department were continued by my representative in

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Geneva; a few weeks ago the Federal Council was good enough to send a representative to New York to renew direct conversations with me. As a result of this visit, a draft exchange of letters was prepared, which I agreed to recommend to the General Assembly for approval, if the draft were approved by the Swiss Federal Council. Thus, a practical solution would have been found to meet the existing need of a European Regional Office. In my opinion there is equally a need for such an office in the Pacific area. On June 29, 1946,1 addressed a letter to the States administering territories under League of Nations mandates, namely: Australia, Belgium, France, New Zealand, the Union of South Africa, and the United Kingdom, enquiring as to the prospects for trusteeship agreements for the territories under mandate and the progress of negotiations on such agreements. Replies to this letter have been received from all the States to which it was addressed. The reply of the Government of France, received on September 30, was accompanied by two proposed trusteeship agreements for Togoland and Cameroons, the two territories administered by France under mandate. These constituted the first trusteeship agreements officially submitted for United Nations approval. During the past week, the Governments of Australia and the United Kingdom have officially submitted proposed trusteeship agreements for territories administered by them under mandate: New Guinea, Tanganyika, Togoland, and the Cameroons. Furthermore, I have been informed that two other Mandatories, Belgium and New Zealand, have drafted proposed trusteeship agreements for the territories mandated to them and that these agreements, the transmission of which has been delayed solely by mechanical difficulties, will be delivered to the United Nations within a matter of hours or days. The Government of the Union of South Africa has requested the inclusion in the agenda of an item relating to South West Africa. I wish to emphasize the importance which I attribute to the submission of trusteeship agreements and their approval by the General Assembly in order that the Trusteeship Council may be speedily established. The Trusteeship Council is one of the principal organs of the United Nations, and our Organization, as envisaged by the Charter, can never be complete without it. Moreover, it must be kept in mind that there is a solemn obligation to

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the Non-Self-Governing Peoples, so many millions of whom staunchly supported the cause of the United Nations in the recent war, and made great sacrifices toward our victory. We must remember, also, that these peoples have no direct voice here and we must give them all possible reassurance that their well-being is ever in our minds and hearts. I earnestly hope that no difficulties will be permitted to stand in the way of the early establishment of the Trusteeship Council. The effective application of the principles of Chapter XI of the Charter, principles which affect the lives of all the hundreds of millions of peoples who have not yet attained a full measure of self-government, is another important aspect of the work of the United Nations. These principles and obligations of Chapter XI are especially significant since they apply to the many Non-Self-Governing Territories which may not come under the international trusteeship system. These principles and obligations of Chapter XI are already fully in force. Accordingly, on June 29,1 addressed a letter to all Member States calling to their attention certain practical problems in connection with this Chapter. The numerous responses thus far received have been both helpful and encouraging. Furthermore, it is especially noteworthy that three of the States administering territories, Australia, France, and the United States, have already transmitted to me the information on their Non-Self-Governing Territories required by Article 73, paragraph e. The General Assembly will surely wish to make good use of this information to the end that the peoples of the colonies and territories as well as of the Trust Territories will have reassurance of the concern of the United Nations for their progressively improved standards of living, their general well-being, and the full realization of the promise held forth by Chapter XI. The Charter of the United Nations contains noble phrases with regard to human rights and the fundamental freedoms. Some cynics may have the feeling that these words will never be anything more than words. They are wrong. Millions of people throughout the world look to these principles to bring them the rights and freedoms to which they are entitled. They will demand the fulfillment of these principles. Unhappily, there are too many cases, even in some of our most highly developed countries, in which elementary human rights are denied to certain sections of the population. It is a source of gratification that the status of women is now under

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consideration by the Economic and Social Council. We cannot close our eyes to the fact that the emancipation of women has still not reached, in many parts of the world, the point which the opinion of civilized humanity regards as just and decent. We must not rest until women everywhere can enjoy equal rights and equal opportunities with men. All Members of the United Nations must employ their efforts to make a living reality of the principles to which they have given their assent. For my part, I pledge that the Secretariat will devote itself, within the limits of its authority, to helping to make the Charter a document of real and vital meaning to the common people. Under the Charter, the United Nations is charged with the duty of encouraging the progressive development of international law and its codification. An item referring to the implementation of Article 13 is on the provisional agenda. I am happy to report that the Secretariat has taken steps to fulfill this important task. A special division of the Legal Department is now engaged in a survey of international legislation and codification through informal contacts established with officials of Member Governments of the United Nations and with private organizations and persons eminent in this field. The Nuremberg Trials have furnished a new lead in this field. This is the first time in history that, as President Truman said yesterday, through cooperation between nations, founded on democracy and the rule of their people, it has been possible to agree on the establishment of an international court to judge war criminals and the leaders of a people which have brought a war upon mankind. Eleven of the most evil men in modern times have been judged according to international laws by an international court. In the interests of peace, and in order to protect mankind against future wars, it will be of decisive significance to have the principles which were employed in the Nuremberg Trials, and according to which the German war criminals were sentenced, made a permanent part of the body of international law as quickly as possible. From now on the instigators of new wars must know that there exist both law and punishment for their crimes. Here we have a high inspiration to go forward and begin the task of working toward a revitalized system of international law. I cannot fail to draw the attention of the General Assembly to the

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Spanish question arising out of the existence in Spain of the fascist regime which was imposed on the Spanish people with the armed intervention of the Axis Powers. The Spanish question has again and again demanded the attention of organs of the United Nations. I do not need to remind you of the resolution on this question which was adopted at the first part of this session of the General Assembly. Since then the Security Council has discussed it in detail, and it has been discussed in connection with several items which have come before the Economic and Social Council. It is probable that other organs of the United Nations as well as of the specialized agencies will also be impeded by the Spanish question. In these circumstances, the General Assembly, at its current session, can do a valuable service by giving comprehensive guidance to the organs and to the Member States of the United Nations regarding their relationship with the Franco regime. It is an unhappy fact that the fascist control of Spain has continued unchanged despite the defeat of Germany and Japan. It seems to be clear that as long as the Franco regime continues in Spain, it will remain a constant cause of mistrust and disagreement between the founders of the United Nations. It is therefore my hope that those who gave us victory and peace may also find ways and means by which liberty and democratic Government may be restored in Spain. The work of the Atomic Energy Commission has continued steadily during the summer, resulting in a number of developments. The Commission began its work with declarations of policy by the Member Governments. Without pursuing questions of general policy to a conclusion, the Commission decided to pave the way for further discussion by obtaining a fuller understanding of the fundamental facts relating to the scientific and technical aspects of nuclear fission. Accordingly, at the end of July, the Scientific and Technical Committee entered upon an intensive study of these questions. As a result, it prepared a report concerning the processes in the production of nuclear fuel and indicating the points in this process at which nuclear fuel might be diverted from peaceful use. It came to the conclusion that there was no basis in the available scientific facts for supposing that effective control would not be technically feasible. It is significant that this report represented the unanimous opinion of

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scientific experts from the twelve nations represented on the Commission. This report was placed before Committee 2, the policy committee of the Commission, on October 8. This Committee, in turn, adopted a resolution in which it agreed "to proceed to examine and report on the safeguards required at each stage in the production and use of atomic energy for peaceful purposes to prevent the possibilities of misuse." Thus, attention is now concentrated on the actual operations which are required for the production of atomic energy. I think we can say that there has been progress, but this progress has been strictly limited and it has been slow. The problem is deeply involved and it clearly requires time to solve. It is enough to say that nobody in this world can sleep peacefully until it is solved and that it is up to the United Nations, through the Atomic Energy Commission, to do the job. The founders of the United Nations have placed high hopes in the Economic and Social Council and events are justifying these hopes. The results of three sessions of the Council are now before the General Assembly. It would take hours to review that work in detail; I shall only mention a few items. The World Health Organization and the Commissions of the Council have been set up. The proposed International Refugee Organization holds forth promise of progress in the settlement of the problem of hundreds of thousands of displaced and homeless persons. You are aware of the urgent necessity of setting up this Organization, in order to prevent the tragic gap which may otherwise result from the liquidation of the activities of UNRRA. Special mention must also be made of the proposal for the creation of an international children's fund. The United Nations has here a great opportunity to relieve human suffering in its most pitiful form. In the economic sphere you have before you the report of the Temporary Sub-Commission on the Economic Reconstruction of Devastated Areas. It is full of solid economic information, but behind it all there is a human story of the suffering and the ceaseless reconstruction efforts of the peoples of the war-devastated countries. But it is more than that; it provides a basis for positive action by the United Nations, a basis for international cooperation in accelerating the progress of reconstruction. Some of the work was conducted in the devastated areas themselves. Field teams of the Temporary Sub-Commission made visits to a number

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of European countries, contacted the responsible authorities and experts, and discussed with them the various reconstruction problems. This, I think, was the first occasion on which a United Nations body has undertaken enquiries on the spot, and I can assure you that it has proved a most valuable method of work. The Secretariat is following up this work in many ways. In particular, it is making a preliminary estimate of the relief needs in 1947 of certain countries now being helped by UNRRA. Of course, a lot still remains to be done. Not only must the economy of the devastated areas be rebuilt; we must also work for the revival of international trade everywhere in the world. This is the aim towards which the Preparatory Committee on Trade and Employment is now working in London. All countries, whatever their domestic economies, whether based on State control or free enterprise, need foreign trade in order to prosper and develop. The peoples of the world need the support and cooperation of each other for the progress of their economic development. But we cannot stop at efforts to revive international trade. The peoples need and desire high and stable levels of employment and economic activity. The United Nations and the specialized agencies in the economic field are the prime instruments for achieving international cooperation towards that end. Let us see that these instruments are used energetically and effectively. The one important fact about the United Nations today is that the Organization is a living, working body, fully engaged in the greatest series of tasks which ever faced any organization. Fifty-one nations are devoting their full energies to solving the problems which we have inherited from the past, and from the most destructive of all wars in history. As the representatives of these nations meet here today, nobody can doubt their determined desire to solve these problems by common effort. The desire for comradeship and cooperation which inspired the United Nations to join in war against a powerful and atrocious array of enemies still endures. Talk of war may be exciting for those who do not know what war means. War may still appear to be a happy escape or a source of revenge for those remnants of fascism who have survived our victory. They must not be allowed to transform those notions into action. For peoples of the United Nations who have experienced the full hor-

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rors of the war, the mere mention of armed conflict must arouse feelings of abhorrence and disgust. Many of our countries still suffer deeply from the outrages of the enemy. They have seen their plans for a better life for their people delayed and disrupted by invasion, by the disorganization of their economies, by lavish expenditure of life, money, and material. It is the united purpose of the nations today to begin life anew, and to achieve that fuller life for their peoples which is the goal of every Government worthy of the name. The months since the conclusion of hostilities have brought to light many differences between the United Nations relating to the peace. During the past summer the Paris Peace Conference has made a strenuous effort to ensure that the peace treaties shall be lasting and satisfactory. We are all grateful to the delegates for their efforts and wish all success to the Council of Foreign Ministers in its further deliberations. The Charter of the United Nations was based upon the assumption that there would be a proper peace and that there would be firm agreement among the Great Powers. The conclusion of the peace treaties will provide the United Nations with solid ground upon which to work, and will eliminate many of the differences which have disturbed the work of the Organization during the first months of activity. The United Nations will then be able to devote itself to preserving a stable peace and to the prosecution of its programme of human betterment throughout the world. We are already deeply involved in that programme and we will continue to become more deeply involved as the months and the years go on. This task, to make life richer for ordinary human beings everywhere, must occupy us throughout our lifetimes and it will occupy those who follow us in the time to come. The world will not forgive us and we will not pardon ourselves if we fail to understand this ultimate and everlasting constructive aim of the United Nations.

Closing Remarks before the 1946 General FLUSHING, N.Y.

Assembly

DECEMBER 15, 1946

of the Assembly delegates, Trygve Lie was encouraged by developments during the fall of 1946 which seemed to indicate some amelioration of the conflict between the Soviet Union and the Western Powers that had developed since Potsdam. Meeting in New York while the Assembly was in progress, the Foreign Ministers had finally agreed, December 11, on draft treaties for Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Italy, and Finland after a year of deadlock. In the UN Atomic Energy Commission, where the Soviet Union had opposed the Baruch Plan, the scientists had been put to work on purely technical, non-political aspects of problems of control and the Soviet member had joined his colleagues in the unanimous conclusion that controls were scientifically feasible. Finally, the Assembly had unanimously adopted on December 14 a compromise disarmament resolution which seemed to bring the two sides closer together in their approach to the principles for the control and disarmament of atomic weapons and of other armaments as well. These hopes were soon to be disappointed, but the tone of the following remarks by Trygve Lie was shared by the other two speakers who concluded the session: Paul-Henri Spaak, the President of the Assembly, and the United States representative, Ambassador Warren R. Austin, who spoke for the host country.

L I K E MOST

May I, first of all, thank the honourable representative of the United States of America for his friendly words to the staff of the United Nations, to the Secretariat, and to myself? May I then include all Members in my thanks for the consideration and the patience which during eight long weeks you have shown to the Secretariat and to myself? You have behind you eight weeks' work. May I say that I have never seen any international gathering work as you have worked day and night, traveling for hours every day in your cars from New York to Lake Success and to Flushing Meadow? I remember a film I saw some years ago. The title was "Congress General Assembly Official Records First Session, Part 2, 66th Plenary Meeting, December 15, 1946.

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69

Dances." It gave me some impressions of international cooperation at that time in history. But thinking of the second part of the first session of the General Assembly in New York, I think you have shown a grand example to the whole world of how representatives of all countries, united in the United Nations, can work. What is the difference between the United Nations today and the Congress which danced some hundred and twenty or thirty years ago? Today almost all countries are in the United Nations, great and small. Today representatives from all groups of each nation are represented in this Assembly: labourers, intellectuals, politicians from all parties, communists, conservatives, liberals, and so on. What does this mean to us all? And what do you think it means to me after watching you day after day for eight weeks? Many have dreamed about the international parliament of man, and I think that we are at the very beginning of building up that international parliament which we have hoped for for such a long time—a parliament built up on the best principles of national parliaments. We have followed democratic processes in our deliberations. There have been different ideas and different points of view, but you have agreed on almost all the most important questions. None of us, no one single country, no single group of people, can every time or in every situation ask for one hundred per cent of what they themselves think is right. The democratic, parliamentarian life is in many ways made up of compromises, and I think you have found the right way to work out the solutions during the course of this Assembly. I may say that the horizon is brighter today than it was at the time I was elected your Secretary-General in London in February of this year. I think I have to thank you all. And at this time I think it is my duty to convey my thanks to the Foreign Ministers who have been in New York and have solved so many difficult problems which have occupied them all for such a long time. I think that peace is something which is no longer merely in the air, but which is more or less taking shape. We can feel it as something more certain than we did some time ago. I think the nations of the world can be proud of their representatives at this Assembly, and especially I think I express the opinion of all the members of the United Nations staff when I convey to our President, Mr. Spaak, our best thanks. We express to you, Mr. Spaak, our deep respect and gratitude. Without you I do not know how we could have

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come through all the difficulties, and I thank you for your patience and your understanding in handling me and in handling all the members of the staff. There is another group of people to whom I should like to say a few words. They have never been present officially in the Assembly, but they have been seated in the press gallery. I think that I, as your SecretaryGeneral, have the right to thank all the reporters, the press people, and the radio people because I do not think any international conference has had such good service as this Assembly, and they have all been with us throughout this session, often almost around the clock. I want to express appreciation not only of the tireless efforts, but also of the high sense of importance of the role of the press and radio, which they have displayed. Dear representatives of all countries, you are now going home to your families and to your friends. I wish you all the best. You must not stop this international work. The most important task will be in the national parliaments and in the official life of your home countries, and you must work, if necessary, day and night to try to make the ideas of the United Nations into living realities.

M 1947 M Legal Opinion on Security Council's

Powers

in the Case of the Free Territory of Trieste —Statement

in the Security

LAKE SUCCESS, N.Y.

Council

JANUARY 10, 1947

of the Italian Peace Treaty called for establishment of a Free Territory of Trieste as a compromise between Italian and Yugoslav claims. The Security Council would be made responsible for Trieste's integrity and independence and for the appointment of a governor responsible to the Council. Australia had questioned at the previous meeting whether the Council could constitutionally assume such responsibilities and this evoked the Secretary-General's statement. Soon after, the Council voted 10 to 0, with Australia abstaining, to accept the responsibilities involved. The plan for Trieste was never to go into effect, a victim of cold war tensions. The Soviet Union and the Western Powers were never even able to agree on the appointment of a governor. Finally in 1954 Italy and Yugoslavia agreed to divide the Territory, with Italy administering the city of Trieste and Yugoslavia the adjoining coastal zone (see also Introduction, pp. 11-12). O N E O F T H E PROVISIONS

(Read on behalf of the Secretary-General by Assistant SecretaryGeneral Arkady A. Sobolev) I am directed by the Secretary-General to submit to the Security Council the following statement with regard to the legal issues raised in connection with the consideration by the Council of the three instruments relating to the Free Territory of Trieste. The legal questions raised are: 1. The authority of the Security Council to accept the responsibilities imposed by these instruments, and Security Council Official Records, 2nd year, No. 3, 91st Meeting, January 10, 1947.

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Legal Opinion on Security Council's Powers

2. The obligation of Members of the United Nations to accept and carry out the decisions of the Security Council pursuant to these instruments. 1. Authority

of the Security

Council

It has been suggested that it would be contrary to the Charter for the Security Council to accept the responsibilities proposed to be placed on it by the permanent Statute for the Free Territory of Trieste and the two related instruments. This position has been suggested on the ground that the powers of the Security Council are limited to the specific powers granted in Chapters VI, VII, VIII, and XII of the Charter, and that these specific powers do not vest the Council with sufficient authority to undertake the responsibilities imposed by the instruments in question. In view of the importance of the issue raised, the Secretary-General has felt bound to make a statement which may throw light on the constitutional questions presented. Paragraph 1 of Article 24 provides: "in order to ensure prompt and effective action by the United Nations, its members confer on the Security Council primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security, and agree that in carrying out its duties under this responsibility the Security Council acts on their behalf." The words, "primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security," coupled with the phrase, "acts on their behalf," constitute a grant of power sufficiently wide to enable the Security Council to approve the documents in question and to assume the responsibilities arising therefrom. Furthermore, the records of the San Francisco Conference demonstrate that the powers of the Council under Article 24 are not restricted to the specific grants of authority contained in Chapters VI, VII, VIII, and XII. In particular, the Secretary-General wishes to invite attention to the discussion at the fourteenth meeting of Committee III/l at San Francisco, wherein it was clearly recognized by all the representatives that the Security Council was not restricted to the specific powers set forth in Chapters VI, VII, VIII, and XII. (I have in mind document 597, Committee III/1/30.) It will be noted that this discussion concerned a proposed amendment to limit the obligation of Members to accept decisions of the Council solely to those decisions made under the specific powers. In the discussion, all the delegations which spoke including both proponents and opponents of this amendment, recognized

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that the authority of the Council was not restricted to such specific powers. It was recognized in this discussion that the responsibility to maintain peace and security carried with it a power to discharge this responsibility. This power, it was noted, was not unlimited, but subject to the purposes and principles of the United Nations. It is apparent that this discussion reflects a basic conception of the Charter, namely, that the Members of the United Nations have conferred upon the Security Council powers commensurate with its responsibility for the maintenance of peace and security. The only limitations are the fundamental principles and purposes found in Chapter I of the Charter. 2. Obligation of the Members to Accept and Carry Out the Decisions of the Security Council The question has been raised as to "what countries will be bound by the obligation to ensure the integrity and independence of the Free Territory." The answer to this is clear. Article 24 provides that in carrying out its duties, the Security Council acts in behalf of Members of the United Nations. Moreover, Article 25 expressly provides that "the Members of the United Nations agree to accept and carry out the decisions of the Security Council in accordance with the present Charter.'' The record at San Francisco also demonstrates that this paragraph applies to all the decisions of the Security Council. As indicated above, there was a proposal in Committee I I I / l to limit this obligation solely to those decisions of the Council undertaken pursuant to the specific powers enumerated in Chapters VI, VII, VIII, and XII of the Charter. This amendment was put to a vote in the Committee and rejected (document 597, III/1/30). The rejection of this amendment is clear evidence that the obligation of the Members to carry out the decisions of the Security Council applies equally to decisions made under Article 24 and to the decisions made under the grant of specific powers.

Opening Statement

at First

of the Trusteeship LAKE SUCCESS, N.Y.

Meeting

Council MARCH 26, 1947

T H E T R U S T E E S H I P C O U N C I L was not able to hold its first meeting until 14 months after the first General Assembly met in London. The Charter provided that the Council should consist of equal numbers of administering and non-administering Member States, and should include the five Permanent Members of the Security Council in one category or the other. During 1946 five States—Great Britain, France, Australia, Belgium, and New Zealand—submitted draft agreements for eight territories held under League of Nations mandate. A prolonged and intense debate followed in the General Assembly. The Soviet Bloc, India, and other States with anti-colonial views, pressed for stronger international controls and supervision and the colonial Powers finally agreed to some changes in this direction. The U.S.S.R. was not satisfied, however. It charged that the procedure under which the draft agreements were submitted unilaterally by the mandatory Powers violated the Charter provision that the terms should be agreed "by the states directly concerned," a term not defined in the Charter but interpreted by the majority as including only the administering States. It also demanded that military bases or the stationing of armed forces in the trust territories be subject to the approval of the Security Council, where the veto would apply. In the end the Assembly approved the revised agreements by substantial majorities but Soviet opposition was maintained. The Soviet delegate's seat was empty when Lie opened the first meeting and the U.S.S.R. boycotted the entire first session of the Council. In April, however, the Soviet Union voted in the Security Council along with the other Members to approve the Strategic Area trust agreement submitted by the United States for the former Japanese mandated islands in the Pacific and later still took its place in the Trusteeship Council during its second session.

This is an occasion of historic significance. You meet here as one of the principal organs of the United Nations, the last such organ to come into being. The basic structure of the United Nations as envisaged in the Charter is now complete. Trusteeship Council Official Records, First Session, First Meeting, March 26, 1947.

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75

Moreover, for the first time in the world's history a permanent international body, whose membership is composed solely of official representatives of Governments, is assembled to deal exclusively with the problems of Non-Self-Governing Peoples. The road to the establishment of this Council has been long and difficult. There have been many conflicts in ideas and interests. At times, because controversial political issues were involved, the debates may have raised the question in people's minds whether the interests of the nations or the interests of the inhabitants of the prospective Trust Territories were the paramount consideration. The administering authorities may have wondered on occasion whether they or the Trust Territories most needed United Nations protection. Nevertheless, progress in the trusteeship deliberations has been steady, and has always been aimed at the ultimate goal—a practical, workable system of international supervision of the administration of Trust Territories. At Dumbarton Oaks, we may recall, the subject of trusteeship was not discussed at all. At San Francisco, it was one of the very last matters on which agreement could be reached during ten weeks of strenuous deliberations. Yet Chapters XI, XII, and XIII emerged from these deliberations as three of the most challenging of the nineteen chapters of the Charter. In London, during the Executive Committee and Preparatory Commission meetings, agreement on many aspects of this subject was extremely difficult to achieve, but in the end agreement was always achieved. And in the first part of the first session of the General Assembly in London, the Fourth Committee unanimously recommended its resolutions to the General Assembly without ever having had to resort to a vote on any issue. These resolutions were, in turn, unanimously and whole-heartedly adopted by the General Assembly. I recall quite clearly from the London Assembly the enthusiasm which greeted the successive declarations in plenary session of the intention of certain of the mandatory Powers to place mandated Territories under the International Trusteeship System. I earnestly hope that future Assembly sessions will have the opportunity to applaud more such declarations. Finally, in the second part of the first session of the General Assembly, the first Trusteeship Agreements appeared. Eight such Agreements were voluntarily presented by five of the mandatory Powers in response to the resolutions adopted by the General Assembly in London. These

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Agreements, in accordance with Article 85 of the Charter, had to be approved by the General Assembly before the peoples of the eight Territories concerned could enjoy the benefits of the Trusteeship System. It was a very difficult task which confronted the Fourth Committee last October. In effect, within a few short weeks the Fourth Committee had to negotiate eight separate and intricate international agreements. I know that at the beginning of the General Assembly Session at New York and indeed, almost until the end, there were many sceptics and cynics who freely expressed the view that there would never be a Trusteeship Council, that Chapters XII and XIII of the Charter were already a dead letter, and that the first meeting of the Trusteeship Council would never come to pass. But the Fourth Committee was persevering. Few committees ever worked harder. And those eight Agreements were negotiated and were approved by the General Assembly at its sixty-second plenary meeting by an overwhelming majority. They were not satisfactory to all Members in all respects, but they represented the maximum agreement that could be reached. Differences remain, but in time I am sure that they, too, will be adjusted. As a result of the action of the General Assembly, the Territories of New Guinea, Ruanda-Urundi, Togoland, and Cameroons under French administration, Western Samoa, Tanganyika, Togoland, and Cameroons under British administration, are now under the Trusteeship System. A Trusteeship Council of five administering and five nonadministering members, two of whom have been elected by the General Assembly, is now, therefore, assembled. In passing, it is to be noted that certain of the territories administered under League of Nations mandate—Nauru, South West Africa, Palestine, and the Pacific Islands formerly administered under mandate by Japan—have not yet been placed under the Trusteeship System. In this regard, it will be recalled that, during the first part of its first session, the General Assembly unanimously adopted a resolution calling upon the mandatory Powers to submit trusteeship agreements for the territories administered by them under mandate. With specific regard to South West Africa, the General Assembly, in the second part of its first session, adopted a resolution which recommended that this Territory be placed under trusteeship and invited the Government of South Africa to submit a Trusteeship Agreement toward that end.

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77

It seems probable that the question of the future status of Palestine will come before the United Nations at an early date. The Security Council is even now deliberating over a trusteeship agreement submitted by the United States with respect to the Pacific Islands formerly mandated to Japan. This opening meeting of the Trusteeship Council should be a useful object lesson to those who would underestimate the potentiality of the United Nations or the ability of its Members to reach agreement on difficult issues. It is also a striking demonstration of the good faith of nations with regard to the promises set forth in Chapters XII and XIII of the Charter, since the Trusteeship Agreements which have made this meeting possible were voluntarily submitted. I congratulate you on the spirit of conciliation and the determined effort to reach maximum possible agreement which have made possible your presence here today. In all earnestness, I express the hope that this same spirit and determination will prevail throughout the work of the United Nations. If it does, there can be no doubt of the ultimate success of this great effort to ensure a world at peace. A willingness among nations to give and take and to make sacrifices, an insistent seeking after agreement, a determination to find a meeting of minds, a readiness to resort to the United Nations even when the most vital national interests are at stake—always on behalf of the solemn principles and purposes of the United Nations—this is the bedrock on which alone the United Nations can build solidly and securely for the future. This meeting of the Trusteeship Council signalizes the beginning of a new and weighty responsibility for the United Nations. We are now charged with the duty of supervising the administration and ensuring the well-being and progressive advancement of the many millions of NonSelf-Governing Peoples who inhabit the Trust Territories. The basic objectives of the Trusteeship System as set forth in Article 76 of the Charter are both broad and precise. The United Nations and the Administering Authorities now solemnly join hands in the great venture of reassuring, by deeds, the inhabitants of the Trust Territories as to their future political, economic, social, and educational advancement and the ultimate realization of their aspirations towards self-government or independence. Although the eight Trust Territories for which you are now responsi-

78

First Meeting of the Trusteeship

Council

ble were all formerly mandated Territories, I would emphasize that the International Trusteeship System is no mere prolongation of the Mandates System under the League of Nations. It is a new system of international supervision. Its scope is wider, its powers broader, and its potentialities far greater than those of the Mandates System. You must, therefore, chart a new course in accordance with the powers, responsibilities, and dignity vested in this organ by the Charter. As I examine Articles 87 and 88 of the Charter, it is clear to me that the Trusteeship Council will have a heavy load of work. You must undertake a careful examination of the annual reports to be submitted by the Administering Authorities for each Trust Territory. Even now, petitions are before you and there will be no doubt an increasing number of them. Periodic visits must be paid to the respective Trust Territories. These functions are the backbone of the system of international supervision. In performing them, you will undoubtedly wish to avail yourselves, in accordance with Article 91 of the Charter, of the assistance of the Economic and Social Council and its commissions, and of the specialized agencies. The first task before you is to get organized, to select your officers and to adopt rules of procedure. In considering its own rules, the Trusteeship Council may benefit greatly from the experience which other organs have had with their provisional rules during the past year or so. The formulation of the questionnaries, which must form the basis for the annual reports by the Administering Authorities, will be a work of detail and of very great importance to the effectiveness of the Trusteeship System. In fulfilling the promise of both the letter and the spirit of Chapters XII and XIII of the Charter, the Trusteeship Council will make a vital contribution to the foundations of world peace. A successful Trusteeship System will afford a reassuring demonstration that there is a peaceful and orderly means of achieving the difficult transition from backward and subject status to self-government or independence, to political and economic self-reliance. In the final analysis, the success of the Trusteeship System will depend on a combination of the earnest intentions of the Administering Authorities, which are, in fact, symbolized by their voluntary presence here, and the reasonable and constructive exercise of the functions of trusteeship given by the Charter to the General Assembly, the Security

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1947

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Council and the Trusteeship Council. In the day-to-day functioning of the System, the Trusteeship Council is clearly the key organ. Finally, let me say that the success of the Trusteeship System will be of real, everyday importance to millions of human beings in the Trust Territories and will also be of enormous benefit to the United Nations as an institution. Full success, incidentally, will automatically put this organ out of existence, since your ultimate goal is to give the Trust Territories full statehood. A really successful Trusteeship System will demonstrate to the world at large that the United Nations is capable of discharging an intricate and difficult responsibility. It will provide further proof of the fact that this Organization is ready to transform its high principles and noble objectives into positive action. To the peoples of the Trust Territories themselves it will be a constant source of hope and assurance in regard to their future, and it will be of great significance to hundreds of millions of people in other Non-Self-Governing Territories which today lie outside the Trusteeship System. You enjoy a magnificent trust. I have full confidence that this trust will be discharged with great good faith, ability, and strength of purpose.

European Economic Recovery United

and the

Nations—

From a Message to the International of Commerce

at Montreux,

Chamber

Switzerland

J U N E 2, 1947

THREE DAYS after Trygve Lie sent the message which included the passage that follows, Secretary of State Marshall launched what became known as the Marshall Plan in a Commencement Address at Harvard. At first the United States, British and French Governments talked of proceeding with the proposed European recovery program "within the framework of the United Nations" 1 and "in conjunction with the appropriate organisms of the United Nations Organization." 2 T h e United Nations Economic Commission f o r Europe had just been established with European recovery as one of its primary purposes and with the noted Swedish economist, G u n n a r Myrdal, as its Executive Secretary. But the European Recovery Program was not to be a United Nations enterprise. A f t e r first indicating Soviet interest, Molotov walked out of a preliminary planning meeting after a dispute with the Western Powers. Neither the Soviet Union nor the East European Communist regimes participated. T h e United States and the Western European nations established their own machinery outside, not inside the United Nations framework, although there was limited cooperation with the United Nations E C E in a few matters (See also Introduction, pages 1 0 - 1 1 ) .

. . . . It is sometimes argued that the United Nations is not as yet equipped to take practical steps in the solution of international economic problems. I cannot agree. One of the first tasks of the United Nations, for example, has been to UN Press Release PM/391, June 2, 1947. 1 Letter from Secretary Marshall to Senator Vandenberg, June 4, 1947. U.S. Department of State, Bulletin, Vol. XVI (June 22, 1947), p. 1213. 2 Joint Communique of Foreign Ministers Ernest Bevin and Georges Bidault, Paris, June 18, 1947. New York Times, June 19, 1947 (See also Memoirs of Harry S. Truman, Vol. II, Years of Trial and Hope, pp. 115-19).

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prepare for the establishment of an international organization concerned with trade and employment. Preparatory meetings have already taken place in London and New York. And now in Geneva, as you know, an unprecedented series of negotiations are in progress, aimed at freeing the channels of international trade. Problems of international trade, however, cannot be isolated from those of full employment and economic development, and it is in recognition of this important fact that the preparatory meetings, to which I have referred, have occupied themselves with questions of employment and development as well as with those of trade. It is hoped that these preliminary meetings will lead the way to a great conference, which will take place in due course, and which will establish an International Trade Organization. This body will take its place amongst the other Specialized Agencies, which, together with the Economic and Social Council and its Commissions, will complete the structure of international organizations working for economic progress. It is within the power of Member Governments, if they so choose, to make of this great structure the most powerful, versatile, and flexible international economic machinery that the world has ever seen. It will be asked: "How could this international machinery be employed?" I should like to answer by drawing your attention to two of the many organs of the United Nations which will be of particular interest to you on this occasion. The fair city of Geneva, not many miles from where you are now meeting, has recently seen the inaugural session of the Economic Commission for Europe, established by the Economic and Social Council on March 28, 1947. One of the most important of the duties of the Economic Commission for Europe, as defined by the Council, is to "initiate and participate in measures for facilitating concerted action for the economic reconstruction of Europe, for raising the level of European economic activity, and for maintaining and strengthening the economic relations of the European countries both among themselves and with other countries of the world." A similar Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East will shortly be holding its first session at Shanghai. In my opinion, these Commissions, within their terms of reference, can render great service to the world, provided there exists amongst all nations the will to use international machinery for the solution of eco-

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nomic problems, as prescribed in the Preamble to the United Nations Charter. I must repeat that these, and any other measures which we can take, will depend for complete success upon the ability of the Powers to settle the major differences which now exist in the political field. We look forward to the day when we can proceed with our work unhampered by these strong, delaying forces. I ask you to recognize the difficulties, to do your best to help in eliminating them, and to maintain your loyal support of the United Nations in its efforts to overcome them.

Introduction Second Annual

to the Report

JULY 4, 1947

Though we are now approaching only the second regular session of the General Assembly, the United Nations is rapidly maturing into a fully functioning organization. The report which I submit herewith, in accordance with Article 98 of the Charter, is an account of a year crowded with international activity. In no other year in history have the representatives of nations met together more frequently, or worked more intensively on so many and such diverse matters. The statistics of the number of meetings of the organs of the United Nations since my first report to the General Assembly are in themselves revealing. During the period from July 1, 1946 to June 30, 1947, the General Assembly held 443 plenary and committee meetings, the Security Council 347, the Economic and Social Council 168, the Trusteeship Council 56, and other United Nations bodies 897 meetings. In addition, there were numerous meetings of specialized agencies, general international conferences, and meetings among groups of States. These figures are of major significance in two respects. On the one hand, they reflect the large number and the complexity of the problems which the world faces today. On the other hand, they show a heartening willingness on the part of Governments to rely increasingly on the processes of international organization for the exploration and solution of problems of common concern. As my report relates in detail, much has already been accomplished through these processes. Unquestionably, the year was one in which the United Nations could record much to its credit, even though it should be noted that the growth of the Organization has been somewhat impetuous and not always sufficiently subject to over-all planning. The developments of the year, however, have revealed certain disturbing tendencies. In a number of instances in which a decision was taken on a general principle of considerable importance, the actual carrying General Assembly Official Records, Second Session, Supplement 1 (Doc A/315).

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Introduction to the Second Annual

Report

out of the principle has been delayed or frustrated by the unwillingness of Governments to take the necessary steps, or by their inability to agree on practical measures for execution. The outstanding political achievement of the first part of the first session of the General Assembly was the resolution on atomic energy; the comparable achievement of the second part of the session was the resolution on the general regulation and reduction of armaments. The Atomic Energy Commission has worked hard and made some progress, but the complexity of the problem still presents many points of disagreement and delay. The Commission on Conventional Armaments has made little progress beyond the adoption of a general plan of work. Thus, the two most significant resolutions of the General Assembly still require positive implementation. There are other resolutions of the Assembly on which I cannot report without qualification. For instance, the problem of Franco Spain cannot yet be said to be satisfactorily resolved in the spirit of the resolution passed by the General Assembly. Again, notwithstanding the resolution on relief needs after the termination of UNRRA, the demonstrated needs of the devastated countries have been met only in part. Nations are beset with the critical problems of relief, of economic reconstruction and social rehabilitation, and of defining human rights and raising standards of living, and many other questions with vital implications for the welfare of mankind. At present, important discussions are still in progress with regard to the economic problems of Europe and their relation to assistance from the United States of America. It will be possible to evaluate these problems fully only when the discussions have been concluded. All this cannot, in the main, be ascribed to the economic dislocation and instability resulting from the war, though these factors are even more serious now than a year ago. It arises in large measure from a basic political situation which underlies and affects all international political, economic, and social activity. I hold it to be my duty to call attention to this situation as it affects the United Nations. The world political situation has not improved in the last year, in spite of the fact that conditions at the beginning of 1947 appeared more hopeful after the Great Powers had shown, in the General Assembly, a determination to seek agreement among themselves. Of outstanding significance, is the fact that the main peace treaties still remain undrafted and unsigned, and that no agreement has yet been reached even on some

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of their fundamental principles. The importance of these treaties, not only to the future of the United Nations, but to the future of the whole world, cannot be overemphasized. It is clear that in the political, and in particular in the economic sphere they are a prerequisite of a reconstructed world order. Important, however, as are the peace treaties, events have shown that the problem which they present is, in turn, part of a larger political complex which operates to delay and frustrate this endeavour as it has operated in some of the affairs of the United Nations. Though the drafting and conclusion of the treaties must remain a responsibility of the Powers which fought the war, the basic problem which delays their conclusion is world-wide in character. It is now apparent that while the nations directly responsible for the conclusion of the peace treaties continue their efforts, it is also necessary for all of us to apply ourselves seriously—through every means available to us—to a more general effort to explore and resolve the fears and conflicting interests which are at the root of our difficulties. It is often, all too often, said that we are heading towards a new disaster. It is far less often said that the situation is also potentially very promising and that we can, if we all strive for it, move quickly and steadily towards a new era of peace, prosperity, and civilization. It is this latter belief which has the United Nations as its chief exponent. I do not believe that this present world situation is as threatening as it is often made out to be. I am convinced that no responsible statesman in any country can, or does, contemplate the prospect of war. If we could start our efforts to resolve the basic problems from that more hopeful, but none the less truly realistic standpoint, I feel that not only might we have a chance of reaching a successful conclusion, but also the millions of people who watch our deliberations might really feel that their own cause, their indisputable longing for peace, is being truly championed by this Organization. It is evident that, in the past year, the United Nations has made great strides in setting up international machinery for the handling of world political, economic, and social problems. The structure of this machinery is almost complete; its shape and design are well defined. It is now possible to say that, with the cooperation of the Member Governments, the United Nations is equipped to undertake responsibility for the handling of problems in these fields. During the past year the United Nations has progressed in many

86

Introduction

to the Second Annual

Report

ways. Its membership has increased by the addition of Afghanistan, Iceland, Siam, and Sweden. It has acquired the site for a permanent home and begun preparations for its construction. The European office at Geneva has begun to function as an important international centre, and information centres have now been opened in eight countries. The Trusteeship Council, the last of the principal organs provided in the Charter, has been established. The Trusteeship System is now in operation, and the first visit to a Trust Territory is being made. Two new bodies of great potential importance have been set up, the Economic Commission for Europe and the Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East. The International Children's Fund has been organized and the first substantial contributions have been made available to it by Member Governments. The General Assembly has held its first special session, to deal with the question of Palestine, and a Special Committee has been set up to elucidate the problem. The International Court of Justice received its first case. The Security Council has conducted its first field investigation on the frontiers of Greece. The Secretariat is improving in efficiency and organization and is daily gaining greater experience in the discharge of its task. The first regular session of the General Assembly was an outstanding event in international life. We all felt that the session has served to harmonize conflicting views, to bring a better spirit into the relations between the Member Countries, and to accomplish important political tasks. We have, in the General Assembly, the representatives of fifty-five nations, among them the greatest and the smallest in the world. Now, more than ever before, every nation has a vital stake in the establishment of a stable and prosperous international order. I am more than ever convinced that the United Nations can, and should, be a place where the combined common sense and determination of the peoples will find its voice and take a real part in the framing of the future of mankind. The Charter is filled with provisions which are specifically designed for this very end. Its first Article states that among the Purposes of the United Nations are the following: "To develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and selfdetermination of peoples, and to take other appropriate measures to strengthen universal peace," and "To be a centre for harmonizing the actions of nations in the attainment of these common ends." If there ever was a time for developing "friendly relations among

July

4,

1947

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nations," "harmonizing the actions of nations," considering "the general principles of co-operation in the maintenance of international peace and security," and "promoting international cooperation in the political field," can it not be said that that time is now? I urge that the Member States devote the most earnest thought to this matter before the opening of the session of the General Assembly. TRYGVE L I E

Secretary-General July 4, 1947

Statement before the Second General at Conclusion of the General FLUSHING, N.Y.

Assembly Debate

SEPTEMBER 23, 1947

I was very happy when the President asked me yesterday afternoon whether I had something to say before the conclusion of the general debate. The fact that I have not spoken at this session until now does not mean that I do not have much in my heart. First of all, I wish to thank the members of the General Assembly for the friendly words which have been expressed by several speakers in regard to myself and my colleagues. I have taken full note of all the advice and the suggestions which have been put forward regarding the Secretariat and shall keep in mind every critical comment, as it is my determination, constantly, to try to improve the administration and to provide a more effective service. I feel that I should be failing in my duty if I did not, on this occasion, say several things in explanation of the difficulties which have beset the Secretariat and its individual members. It must not be forgotten that the administrative apparatus of the United Nations was moved from London to the United States in March and April of 1946 and that we led a roving existence from Hunter College and the Henry Hudson Hotel to Lake Success. It was necessary for us to prepare complete technical apparatus for the Security Council by the end of March of last year; we were required to receive the Economic and Social Council in May, and to complete preparations for the General Assembly in September. At the same time, a rather rigid administrative pattern had been laid down in London by the Preparatory Commission and the Assembly's group of experts. The only course open to us was to follow this established procedure loyally and carefully, even though it appeared at times to be unnecessarily cumbersome. Hundreds of employees had to be engaged and put into service within a few months, and they came from all corners of the world. The personGeneral Assembly Official Records, Second Session, 90th Plenary Meeting, September 23, 1947.

September 23, 1947

89

nel had to be lodged in hotels, boarding-houses, and with private families. Lake Success and Flushing Meadow were ready when the General Assembly met last autumn. When the Assembly ended, in the middle of December, we were confronted by new tasks, tasks which of course had not been created by myself and my Assistant Secretaries-General, but which were imposed upon the Secretariat by various organs of the United Nations. The burden of these tasks can be measured in some degree by the fact that the Secretariat served nearly two thousand meetings during the year. This work has not been made easier by the fact that it has been conducted, to a large extent, in the reconverted factory building at Lake Success. I am sure that the representatives, who have seen working conditions there, need no introduction to the physical difficulties. The most important administrative task which awaits this General Assembly is to take a decision regarding the erection of new United Nations headquarters. The United Nations must have a permanent home without delay. I hope that the present interim period, during which efficient operations are greatly hampered, may be just as short as possible. At this time, I wish to express my thanks and appreciation to the personnel of the Secretariat which, during more than eighteen months, has overcome all manner of personal and technical difficulties in performing its work. I am aware that even the present programme of international action through the United Nations places a burden upon those Member States which are at present faced with serious foreign exchange difficulties. I am determined that the work entrusted to the Organization shall be carried out in the most economical and efficient manner. Over the volume and nature of that work, over the services to be rendered, as well as the actual projects to be undertaken, control rests primarily with the representative organs of the United Nations themselves. I believe that the General Assembly would do well to review the present situation with this fact in mind. I may be permitted to make some remarks of a political nature, first with regard to the question of new Members. From the very beginning of our Organization's activities the general principle of universality has been commonly accepted in regard to this matter. I see no reason at the present time to deviate from the idea that all freedom-loving nations which accept the obligations contained in the

90

Statement at Conclusion of the General Debate

Charter and are able and willing to carry out those obligations should be accepted into the United Nations. Consequently, I express the hope that action may be taken at an early date—if possible, during the present General Assembly—to bring into our Organization those nations which are now awaiting admission. Both in 1946 and 1947 I recommended to the Security Council that all applicants should be accepted as Members. I feel at this time that the Organization will be served better by having the present applicants as Members, thereby imposing upon them the obligations and responsibilities of membership, than by allowing so many nations to remain outside. I turn now to the more general question of the political situation which exists in the world and has found such strong expression in the declarations of policy which we have heard during the opening general debate in this Assembly. I called attention to this situation, as it affects the United Nations, in my annual report on the work of the Organization. It is perfectly clear to all of us that this situation is subjecting the United Nations to a serious test The very cornerstone of the United Nations—Big Power cooperation and understanding—is being shaken by open differences between the Powers. The peoples of the world, and many Governments as well, are shocked, frightened, and discouraged to find that those same nations which created the United Nations are so openly unable to agree. I wish to state my emphatic opinion that this situation, no matter how strong the political differences may be, does not constitute a threat to the existence of the United Nations. It does, however, hamper the activities of the United Nations and its ability to perform the duties laid down for it in the Charter. It cannot fail to hinder the United Nations in promoting peaceful relations, economic cooperation, and social justice. I shall not go into the particular political questions which have been considered by the first General Assembly and by the Security Council. We all know that many of them have not been settled and that in many of the important matters—for example, the control of atomic energy— two parties are definitely at odds, even though both of them have the same interest in securing effective control. These conflicts and differences do not result from the rule of unanimity among the Great Powers. The veto issue is more of a symptom than a cause. Both the Security Council, where the rule of unanimity applies,

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91

and the General Assembly, where there is no such rule, are being hampered seriously in their work by these conflicts and differences. It is tragic that the United Nations, up to this time, has been able only to a limited degree to fulfill its great obligations in the economic and social fields. Economic instability and confusion are rampant in most of the lands of the world. Millions of human beings are threatened by famine and, in by far the largest part of the world, chronic malnutrition, lack of education, and lack of means to ensure the public health are the rule. Certain nations have made tremendous contributions to relieve need and to encourage economic stability in various areas of the world. Yet, it is clear to everybody that, when all is said and done, and to an everincreasing degree, the world is an economic unit and that these requirements can only be fulfilled by full international cooperation. In accordance with the Charter, the United Nations has acted upon this fact and has set up an apparatus which is designed to facilitate world economic cooperation. The actual work is complicated by the fact that there are different economic and social systems in the world. Yet the war has proven that it is completely possible for States with different systems and different ideologies to solve great and even overwhelming problems by working together. Today we are faced by many such problems, overwhelming in their difficulty. Are not millions of people in Europe alone standing before the immediate prospect of hunger? Is not a very large part of Asia afflicted with a miserable standard of living, hunger, and epidemics? Are not great masses of people in Central and South America awaiting the day when they too can find a better life? The dire need of many people in the Near East and Africa is known to us all. It would be a grave thing for humanity if political differences and political suspicion should deny the United Nations the power to accomplish its great humanitarian work. Yet, in actual fact, such is the danger today. We must work constantly to moderate these differences and to alleviate these suspicions. They must not be allowed to split the world into blocs and to form tight groups of nations which stand, one against the other, within the United Nations itself. Let nobody forget that the initiative in the founding of the United Nations was taken by the Great Powers, acting together. At Yalta, the

92

Statement

at Conclusion

of the General

Debate

leaders of the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States declared: "Our meeting . . . has reaffirmed our common determination to maintain and strengthen in the peace to come that unity of purpose and of action which has made victory possible and certain for the United Nations in this war. We believe that this is a sacred obligation which our Governments owe to our peoples and to all the peoples of the world. "Only with continuing and growing cooperation and understanding among our three countries and among all peace-loving nations can the highest aspirations of humanity be realized—a secure and lasting peace which will, in the words of the Atlantic Charter 'afford assurance that all men in all the lands may live out their lives in freedom from fear and want.' "Victory in this war and establishment of the proposed international organization . . . will provide the greatest opportunity in all history to create in the years to come the essential conditions of such a peace. "(Signed) Winston S. Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, J. V. Stalin." The background for the formation of the United Nations was the feeling of brotherhood and fellowship created among the Great Powers by the war. At the San Francisco Conference this feeling was so strong that it was possible to bridge very serious differences by fair compromise. Many of those who listened to the discussions at that time will say that we have already gone far from the spirit of San Francisco. Just as it was cooperation among the Powers which created the United Nations, so it is disunity among them which today creates our greatest difficulties. It is easy to find strategic, economic, and ideological differences which explain this disunity; but it is impossible, and it is intolerable, to think that these differences should ever be allowed to lead to war. I do not believe that there is any nation or any Government in the world that does not want to prevent another war. The greatest difficulty lies in the fact that the Great Powers suspect each other or each other's intentions. It is fear which is the greatest danger. Fear breeds hate, and hate breeds danger. We cannot alter the fact that there are not only different nations, but, also, different types of civilization, different ideas, and different interests, in the world. But the indispensable condition for peace is that nations with different social systems and different interests shall strive to live and work together, side by side, in peace. This must find expression in political negotiations which show a will-

September

23, 1947

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ingness to compromise. Without such a will, without cooperation and agreement, let me emphasize that no mechanism for the maintenance of international peace and security, however perfect, can be effective. I can only express the hope that the nations will find a way to return to the spirit of the preamble of the San Francisco Charter, "to practice tolerance and live together in peace with one another as good neighbours."

Statement before the Second General on Plan and Financing of Permanent FLUSHING, N.Y.

Assembly Headquarters

NOVEMBER 20, 1947

opened the General Assembly's plenary discussion of the plans he had submitted for the Headquarters building and of the United States' offer of a $65,000,000 interest-free loan to finance construction. Discussion was brief and approval was unanimous, but the Secretary-General and many others had previously devoted many months to the planning work and negotiations with New York City, State, and Federal governments. Construction costs for the plans originally proposed had been estimated at $85,000,000, but space requirements were later scaled down enough to reduce the estimated cost to $65,000,000. Then, on October 29, United States Ambassador Austin formally notified the Secretary-General that President Truman would ask Congress to approve an interest-free loan for this amount repayable in annual installments of $1,000,000 to $2,500,000 each beginning in 1951. There was delay and difficulty in securing Congressional approval of the loan agreement, but it was finally adopted and signed by President Truman on August 11, 1948.

TRYGVE L I E

I know the Assembly will understand the very great pleasure and satisfaction which I personally feel on this occasion. It is not quite a year since you voted to accept the munificent Rockefeller gift and authorized the preparation of a plan for the headquarters. Within a short time we had assembled a notable group of architectural and engineering talent from all parts of the world, under the leadership of Mr. Wallace Harrison. I will confess that I had some private misgivings on how these eminent men of art would get along together, since I had often heard that the world of art is dominated by no less vigorous argumentation over theory and practice than the world of politics. It is a remarkable and heartening thing that famous architects and technicians such as Le Corbusier of France, Niemeyer of Brazil, Bassov of the U.S.S.R., Robertson of Great Britain, and the others—in all, fourteen General Assembly Official Records, Second Session, 121st Plenary Meeting, November 20, 1947.

November

20, 1947

95

famous architects from fourteen different countries—were able to come to common agreement on a plan, and in so short a time. It gives me ground for hoping that the men of politics may be able to emulate the men of art and science in reaching common agreement also. The General Assembly has now before it for approval the design of a magnificent international workshop and monument which has come out of the devoted labour of these men. In the same resolution, you have before you the offer of the Government of the United States to negotiate an interest-free loan of $65,000,000, subject to the approval of the Congress. Herein, the Government of the United States, the host country, gives tangible evidence of its faith in the United Nations and of its determination to see it firmly established for all time to come. I am certain that we would not have come nearly as far as this, either in the plan or in the financial problem, if it had not been for the strong support and wise counsel of the representative of the United States, Mr. Warren Austin. The United Nations owes him a very great debt of gratitude for his tireless efforts which will never be forgotten by all of those who have been privileged to work with him. I should also like to express the most heartfelt appreciation for the splendid cooperation which we have received and continue to receive from the people and officials of the City of New York, particularly Mayor William O'Dwyer and Commissioner Robert Moses. They have worked together with us as partners in the same enterprise in weekly meetings and conferences. The City of New York has appropriated great sums of money to acquire part of the site and to provide the right approaches and surroundings. Their plans have been carefully worked out so they can proceed step by step with us. I can testify that these men have shown by every act and word that the people of this city are determined to do everything in their power to help the United Nations succeed. Much work, hard work, remains to be done before the permanent headquarters of the United Nations becomes a reality in steel and stone and glass. The start has been a good one. I pledge you all my efforts to carry on this project to a happy conclusion.

From Statement

before the General

at the Conclusion of Its Second FLUSHING, N.Y.

Assembly Session

NOVEMBER 29, 1947

More than ten weeks of intensive work lie behind the representatives of the fifty-seven Member States as the second session of the General Assembly of the United Nations comes to a close. Not a single day has been wasted. Meetings have been held morning, afternoon, and evening. I am astonished at the amount of energy and strength which has been expended in going through the longest agenda which an international organization has ever had. Not everybody has been aware of the important fact that the United Nations, as Mr. Austin just mentioned, as it exists today, is in all respects much larger than any other international organization which has existed previously. The vast amount of work which the General Assembly has accomplished during these weeks has been made possible, to some degree, by a great improvement in our technical apparatus. Without the modernization which has been accomplished by introducing simultaneous interpretation, such a General Assembly as this might have lasted four or five months instead of ten weeks. Nevertheless, I had hoped that this General Assembly would be able to finish its work one or two weeks sooner than it has. I hope the President will excuse me for saying that this might have happened if the length of speeches had not tended to increase in proportion to the economy of time which we achieved through the use of simultaneous interpretation. . . . The end of the second session of the General Assembly of the United Nations coincides with the first meetings of the Council of Foreign Ministers which met earlier this week in London. It is fitting, particularly in view of the experience which we have had during this session of the General Assembly, once more to express the earnest hope that the Foreign Ministers of the four Powers will achieve real progress toward the conclusion of the major peace treaties. It would be improper and useless to try to disguise the fact that the General Assembly Official Records, Second Session, 128th Plenary Meeting, November 29, 1947.

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second session of the General Assembly has been dominated by the differences which exist between the East and the West—between the very Powers which originally took responsibility for bringing the United Nations into being. It cannot be repeated too often that the United Nations was founded on the assumption that the major Powers would be in substantial agreement with one another. It is clear for all the world to see that our Organization can accomplish its tasks, as laid down by the Charter, only if the Great Powers, and consequently the other nations included in our membership, can work together with a reasonable degree of harmony. Agreement on the peace treaties with Germany, Austria, and later, Japan would mark a further step towards conciliation and agreement on other questions. During this year's session of the General Assembly there have been more political issues between the Great Powers and fewer agreements on these issues than there were during the last session of the General Assembly held in 1946. Nevertheless, a vast amount of work has been accomplished. When I look at the record of votes on all the decisions made at this session, I find that unanimity has been the rule, not the exception. It is a striking fact that the General Assembly continued to move closer to the ideal of unanimity than most national parliaments and legislatures despite much wider divergencies among the Members. The worst unresolved differences between the majority and the minority have arisen over the issues of the Interim Committee, the Special Committee on the Greek Question, and the Temporary Commission for Korea. All these proposals have been adopted by large majorities, but in each case the minority has refused to accept the decision and has announced its intention of refusing to participate in carrying it out. On the other hand, the principal parties to these controversies have joined together in a serious effort to work out a plan for Palestine. The sharpest debate which has taken place in this General Assembly concerned war propaganda; but this debate has resulted in the unanimous adoption of recommendations directed toward better understanding and greater friendship among all the peoples of the United Nations. These resolutions do more than condemn war propaganda and slanderous statements made about other Member Nations. They are positive measures. They request the Member States to promote friendship among the nations in accordance with the principles of the Charter and by all available means of publicity and propaganda; to encourage the spreading of information expressing the universal desire for peace.

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Statement

at Conclusion

of Second

Session

Another important recommendation invites all Member States to encourage the teaching of the Charter, organization, and activities of the United Nations to all school children. If these resolutions are loyally carried out, they will contribute greatly to building what is, in the long run, the only firm foundation for lasting peace—an informed and effective public opinion. I regret that the General Assembly's preoccupation with political and constitutional differences has resulted in little attention being given to the great and pressing economic problems that beset most of the world at the present time. Nevertheless, further progress has been made in setting in order the vast interlocking machinery of the United Nations that has been created to deal with these problems: its Economic and Social Council and its Commissions and the specialized agencies. This worldwide machinery has been created because the Member States recognize that a lasting solution of these problems can be found only by full international cooperation on a world-wide basis. It is to be hoped that, in the coming year, they will make the fullest possible use of the Organization's machinery, which they themselves have established for their common benefit. The General Assembly has made progress in fulfilling Charter obligations toward dependent peoples. The Trusteeship System has been strengthened. New provisions for reporting by the responsible Powers on the progress of all dependent peoples and for evaluation of these reports have been adopted. The General Assembly has also acted in other fields to bring about a better implementation of the Charter and of its own recommendations. The Secretary-General has been requested to report on what Member States have done toward carrying out all recommendations on economic and social matters before the next session. Member States have been specifically requested to report on action in behalf of refugees, on education regarding the United Nations, and on other matters. Since the General Assembly, as a rule, does not have the power to enforce its decisions, the building up of such a system of responsibility through world opinion, by means of regular reporting, is new and important. It will increase the moral force behind the acts of the General Assembly. Adoption of the plans for financing and building the permanent headquarters in Manhattan was another demonstration of unanimity by the General Assembly. The buildings will be constructed to last a century. This unanimous act of faith in the permanence of the United Nations

November

29, 1947

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may serve to create confidence in some places where confidcncc has been lacking. A further source of confidence may be found in the records of our debates, which show that all sides in the disputes over constitutional issues agreed on one all-important point. They reaffirmed their support of the Charter and their desire to strengthen the Organization

M 1948 M From Message on the Signing of the Havana Charter for an International

Trade

Organization

MARCH 24, 1948

sent a message to be read at the signing ceremony on March 24, 1948, of the Charter for an International Trade Organization in Havana, Cuba, the main part of which is reproduced below. It was a hopeful moment. The ITO was intended to be a companion United Nations specialized agency with the International Monetary Fund and the International Bank in dealing with problems of currency, investment, and trade. Agreements for the Fund and the Bank had been drawn up at the Bretton Woods, New Hampshire Conference in July 1944 and came into force December 27, 1945, but negotiation of a trade charter was not begun until 1946. After a year of difficult negotiation and drafting by a Preparatory Committee established by the Economic and Social Council on United States initiative and another four months of the same process in the Havana Conference, representatives of 53 of the 56 participating Governments signed the Final Act. The Soviet Union did not participate in any of these negotiations. It had stayed out of the Bank and Fund also, as of most other Specialized Agencies at that time. The Havana signing later proved to be a stillbirth. The die was cast when the United States Congress could not be persuaded to accept the ITO Charter and the effort to establish the new agency was finally abandoned in 1950. However, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, negotiated at the same time as the proposed ITO Charter, survived and served as a very important instrument for lowering international trade barriers. United Nations action in support of the principles of full employment and economic development, to which Lie's message also refers, has been carried on in other ways.

TRYGVE L I E

. . . . A t a time when there is so much in the relationships of nations, especially those with the greatest power and responsibilities, which is UN Press Release PM/859, March 23, 1948.

March 24, 1948

101

discouraging, it is splendid to be able to point to a great achievement in a field of international economic cooperation presenting problems of exceptional difficulty and complexity. No single delegation here would have drafted the Trade Charter in exactly its present form. No one is entirely satisfied, and many of you still have reservations on this point or that. But there is, I think, a general recognition that the area of agreement is now so large, and the concessions made on all sides so substantial, that it is possible to proceed with the next stage towards building an International Trade Organization founded on a most significant body of doctrine concerning the economic relations between nations. This achievement stands in splendid contrast to the tragic failures of the years between the two World Wars. We all remember the high hopes of the fifty-nation World Economic Conference of 1927, held under the auspices of the League of Nations, and the subsequent failure of its recommendations. We recall the further conferences of 1930, 1931, and 1933, none of which were able to find a cure for the creeping paralysis which was disrupting international economic relations. Your success is all the more remarkable when viewed against this background of inauspicious precedents. But this history of failure has by no means been the most serious hurdle which you have had to surmount. You have met and worked together at a time in which many nations have been faced with such immediate and overwhelming economic troubles arising out of World War II that they have had the greatest difficulty in approaching the task of longterm planning for the orderly development of international trade in more normal circumstances. You have grappled successfully with this problem too, and have made wise provision for a transition period before the full code of economic conduct laid down in the Charter takes effect. Perhaps your most significant contribution to the planning of international trade relations has been in your recognition of the essential interdependence of economic problems. In this respect, the experience of the interwar World Economic Conferences has not, perhaps, been entirely in vain. You will recall that in its report of 1945, entitled "Commercial Policy in the Post-War World," the League of Nations Economic and Financial Committee stated that ". . . w e are strongly of the opinion that the direct association of commercial policies with policies designed to secure an expansion of production and consumption and the maintenance of high and stable levels of employment is an essential prerequi-

102 Message on the Signing of the Havana Charter site to progress towards international economic cooperation. The faillire in the interwar years to emphasize the essential interdependence of these issues was indeed one of the reasons for the lack of success that was then experienced." Economic developments in the world since 1945 have, if anything, tended to strengthen these arguments in favor of the close knitting together of all the elements and aspects of international economic policy. I recently had occasion, in the Economic Report, which I presented to the Economic and Social Council, to draw attention to the present most serious distortions and lack of balance in international trade. The Economic Report showed, I think conclusively, that present difficulties in international trade, and the resulting world-wide hard currency problems, were intimately associated with, and could not be considered independently of, the shifts in the distribution of the world's productive resources which were a consequence of World War II. The reconstruction of all areas to which the war brought heavy devastation is sine qua non of any general improvement in the international trade situation. It has, moreover, come to be regarded almost as a commonplace both by Governments and by public opinion that the maintenance of economic prosperity and full employment at home, particularly in certain countries of great economic influence, lies at the very basis of a healthy situation in international trade. Of no less significance for the expansion of international trade is the economic progress of the underdeveloped areas of the world, since international trade per capita is generally lowest where economic development is still in its early stages. With these considerations in mind, the Havana Conference, as also the Preparatory Committee which preceded it, has worked on the deliberate assumption that the problems involved in expanding international trade cannot themselves be solved unless other related and at least equally urgent questions receive simultaneous consideration. These questions appear in the very forefront of the Havana Charter in Article I, and include particularly "the attainment of the higher standards of living, full employment and conditions of economic and social progress and development" envisaged in Article 55 of the Charter of the United Nations. The strong emphasis which you have placed in the Havana Charter on questions of full employment and economic development constitutes, as it seems to me, one of the most important single reasons why you have

March 24, 1948