Cablegram 889 WASHINGTON, 19 September 1944, 9.29 p.m.
TOP SECRET MOST IMMEDIATE PERSONAL
Evatt from Dixon.
World Organization.
Your 1435 and 1436 [1] just arrived.
In the meantime it may interest you to know that I stated my own personal opinion to the Embassy that it was better to accept the demand of Russia that the concurrence of a permanent member should be necessary, although her own interests were involved, rather than to let the Conference terminate without agreement. This view, however, was not taken in Quebec as we are informed. At an earlier stage efforts were made, but ineffectually, to induce the Russian representatives to concur in leaving the question open and in some form remitting it to the meeting of the United Nations.
Since our 884 of 17th September [2], there have been further developments of which we have just been informed. At a meeting of the Steering Committee held on the afternoon of 17th September, the United States representative said that his Government wished:-
(a) To close the discussions with the Soviet representatives as soon as possible with the issue of a short communique and (b) That the four Governments should issue at some date to be agreed upon following the conclusion of the discussions with the Chinese a statement indicating the points on which agreement had been reached.
The statement of agreement would in fact be the text of the proposals, the section relating to voting on the Council and other sections which could not be agreed being left blank. A simple statement would be made to the effect that proposals would have to be worked out to cover these points and it would be added that the points still left open would be examined further by the Governments concerned with a view to agreeing upon final proposals to place before a United Nations Conference. The Steering Committee decided that representatives of the United Kingdom, United States and the Soviet Union should submit to their respective Governments certain provisional draft texts covering (A) and (B). The full text of these drafts is given in my immediately following telegram. [4]
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1 Document 287.
2 On file AA:A816, 146/301/1.
3 Cablegram 890, dispatched 19 September. On file AA:A5954, box 1821.
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[AA:A5954, BOX 1821]