Washington, 6 February 1950
99. Restricted Emergency
Your 51.1
1. Your views conveyed today to Assistant Secretary of State for United Nations, Hickerson.2
2. Hickerson stated that he did not consider that Soviet intended to withdraw from the United Nations. He considered that the Chinese Communist Government’s action in relation to consular properties and the recognition of Ho Chi Minh3 were not aspects of a correlated plan designed to prevent Chinese participation in the United Nations. He thought that the Soviet withdrawal was primarily a propaganda motive directed toward impressing the people of China.
3. He said that the United States view was that each United Nations body or international organisation should have the right to determine by majority �vote and as a procedural issue the validity of the credentials of its constituent members. This issue was regarded as unnecessarily a political one. He considered that it would be impossible for countries still recognising Nationalist China to vote for its removal, even though it might be prepared to sit with Communist China if a majority vote favoured admission. The Department is not unduly concerned that China might be variously represented on different United Nations bodies at the same time.
4. Consideration had been given to the question of representation on international bodies being treated as a question of fact and law, but no guiding legal principles could be discovered.
5. He considered that the Soviet, by walking out of the Security Council and other United Nations bodies, had not shown proper regard for their obligations under the Charter and, in fact, had committed a breach of the Charter. In these circumstances, the only honourable and correct course was to adhere to the policy of continuing the meetings of such bodies, treating the Soviet absence as abstention.
6. He agreed that the present anomalous situation might continue for some time but thought that, as the Soviet had acted improperly, appeasement could not properly be considered.
7. Your suggestions did not appear to US4 to be feasible, particularly the reference to Secretary–General or International Court.
8. He did not specifically count on the Credentials Committee of ECOSOC giving purely legal determination. However, you will appreciate that the Soviet is likely to press at the outset for determination of the question of representation of China as Credentials Committee would not meet until after the elections of office bearers, on which issue China would be entitled to vote.
9. He reiterated that under no circumstances would the United States treat the question as subject to veto.
[NAA: A1838, 494/2/10, iv]
1 Document 10.
2 John D. Hickerson, US Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs.
3 On 14 January, PRC authorities seized US consular property in China. On 19 January, Peking recognised the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRY), whose leader, Ho Chi Minh, had recently declared the DRY to be the only legal government of Vietnam.
4 In the original, these letters are not capitalised.