UNITED NATIONS ORGANIZATION 293

IO Files: SD/A/51 (Minutes 7)

Minutes of the Seventh Meeting on General Assembly Preparations
With Senator Austin, Department of State, September I1, 1946,
11am.

TOP SECRET
Present: Senator Warren R. Austin Hayden Raynor

Bernhard B. Bechhoefer . John C. Ross
William Dawson William Sanders
Everett Drumright Durward Sandifer
Charles Fahy Isaac Stokes
Dorothy Fosdick Elwood Thompson
Alger Hiss George Wadsworth
Joseph E. Johnson Charles Yost

GeneRAL AssEMBLY AGENDA I[Tems DEALING WITH VOTING IN
SECURITY COUNCIL

Mr. Ross stated that the purpose of this meeting was primarily to
consider the approach which would be used in consideration of the
problem of veto rather than the conclusions. The discussion in the
meeting should center around the draft of a proposed position paper
and Senator Austin’s memorandum of September 9.° Mr. Ross stated
that two factors must constantly be borne in mind:

1. That the discussions must be centered around the two specific
proposals before the General Assembly—the Australian proposal and
the Cuban proposal.

9. That since the veto problem will not be settled in this session of
the General Assembly, a broad approach must be made to the specific
agenda items and their relation to the future development of the
United Nations.

Senator Austin stressed that in public discussion of the veto ques-
tion the emphasis had been wrong; that the affirmative problems of
prevention of war and peaceful settlement of disputes should be
stressed rather than the negative functions of the veto; that the veto
merely was one aspect of the principles of voting which were in turn
only phases of the broader subject of the prevention of war and peace-
ful settlement of disputes.

Mr. Ross indicated that the general line of Senator Austin’s ap-
proach was the same as the approach that had been taken in the
Department of State.

® Neither printed; the principal points in Senator Austin’s memorandum were
discussed at this meeting; for the position paper that finally eventuated, see
United States Delegation Position Paper SD/A/C.1/69B, October 22, p. 298.