That is a dangerous thing to do. That is why it is our judgment that we should stay within chapter VI just as long as it is humanly possible to do so. It takes patience.

The frailty in the Security Council to which I wish to point is one of procedure. We have encountered a misuse of the veto. It is in chapter VI, where we seek to substitute for war the great principle of agreement, that the misuse of the veto has caused skepticism, criticism, and search for improvement. Right here it is necessary to reconcile with the facts the efforts at strengthening the United Nations.

The Soviet Union has exercised the veto 23 times-11 times on membership applications, 9 times on issues of pacific settlement, and 3 times on the Balkan issue.

That is just one issue, by the way, but there were three votes involved on that one issue. Just think of the relative significance of that when you consider that nearly all the legislation before the committee relates to the field in which we have had just one case where there has been a use of the veto. And, as I shall show you, the use of the veto in that case did not stop the United Nations in its great mission.

I undertake to prove that the United Nations has not failed because of the veto.

It is not true that the United Nations has failed because of this veto. On the contrary, it has succeeded in spite of the veto, as I will later demonstrate. However, it is true that the United Nations could expedite its service and accomplish more effective solutions of disputes and situations if the veto privilege were not permitted to interfere with pacific settlement of disputes.

Your earnest work toward strengthening the United Nations is encouraging because of the influence which your views may have upon the adoption of improved practices and procedures within the Charter.

When it becomes feasible to amend the Charter in respect to Chapter VI, as well as in respect of admission of new members, the strong position you will have taken in criticism of this frailty should prove to be of great assistance to the members of the United Nations.

Although the United States is ready, the time has not yet arrived for amendment of the Charter even to that extent. I have already proved to you it has not arrived.

Now, let me show what has actually happened in the use of the United Nations to substitute pacific solutions for war, in which I say it has succeeded.

1. The Security Council succeeded in inducing the Soviet Union to withdraw its troops from the territory of Iran.

That was a threat to peace.

2. The withdrawal of British and French troops from Syria and Lebanon was a result of a Security Council expression of strong views. 3. The Security Council has helped to protect the political independ ence and territorial integrity of Greece, even though the Soviet Union three times vetoed efforts to deal with the situation. Twice the vetoes overcame a majority of nine, which supported resolutions finding that assistance to and support of guerrillas on the northern borders of Greece constituted a threat to the peace, within the meaning of chapter VII of the Charter.

Here is where we were strongly tempted, to get out of chapter VI and into chapter VII.

The third veto was on a resolution requesting the General Assembly to make recommendations in the Greek case. The veto failed in its purpose; it did not bar all UN service for peace. The Security Council merely divested itself of the subject, and the General Assembly, 5 weeks later, passed a resolution calling upon Albania, Bulgaria, and Yugoslavia to do nothing which could furnish assistance to the guer

rillas.

By that resolution the General Assembly also established the Balkan Commission with headquarters at Salonika to observe compliance with the recommendations and to assist in implementing them. These recommendations outlined specific methods for settlement of their disputes by peaceful means. These four countries had to implement these resolutions. This Balkan Commission is now at work on the ground. The tremendous moral effect of surveillance by all of the rest of the world is now being witnessed.

The United Nations certainly has upset the timetable of the aggression of communism in Greece. The United Nations is helping Greece in her struggle for freedom. The United States, in cooperation with the United Nations has helped Greece to preserve her independence. What would have happened to Greece had it not been for the United Nations, even hindered as it was by the veto in the Security Council? You can well envisage what the condition on the Mediterranean would be today without United Nations action.

I am pointing out that on every one of these test cases we have been successful in preserving peace and preventing war in spite of the existence and use of the veto. At other times when it could have been used it was not because the practice has grown up in the vital life of the Charter which has made it possible for us to proceed through abstention instead of the use of the veto.

Now, here is the fourth incident: Indonesia was another situation, the continuance of which might have led to a threat to international security and peace. War had already begun between the Dutch and Indonesians, but the Security Council was able to obtain a truce. Moreover, a good offices committee was set up, which helped to determine lines of demarcation between the forces and to obtain agreement on 18 principles to guide the setting up of the United States of Indonesia.

Progress is now being made on the basis of pacific solution toward security for a population equal to half of that of the United States. If we look at those islands on the map, we do not realize how much humanity was affected by that war that had already commenced and which we stopped.

In addition, one of the great consequences of the pacific settlement of this dispute is to give strength to the movement away from the old colonial system and toward self-government and independence. This movement is of critical importance as to a vast area, both in Asia and Africa. We find it involved indirectly in the next item-IndiaPakistan.

By the way, what would you have done without the United Nations in the Indonesian case? What would have happened had there not been a United Nations to step in and exercise its benign influence on

that situation? You could have had a war that would have affected the entire Pacific Basin. You could have had a war that might have reached north and affected a great country up there. You could have had a war that would have spread around the globe from those islands in the Pacific.

We do not have to contemplate that because we have a United Nations.

I come now to the India-Pakistan case, where you have had the most recent demonstration of this remarkable great movement away from colonial government and toward self-government and independence. India and Pakistan brought their dispute over Kashmir to the Security Council with representations that if the conditions continued, war of communal intensity might break out all over the subcontinent. Four hundred million inhabitants of the newly established free dominions of India and Pakistan were on the verge of war. If the United Nations had not been available to them, the conditions, now bad enough, would certainly have been much worse by this time.

Their case was kept within Chapter VI. Prolonged, difficult negotiations were tried without reaching agreement between the parties; whereupon the Security Council adopted recommendations for a truce and a plebiscite. These recommendations are not compulsory. None of the recommendations under this chapter VI are compulsory. None of the recommendations of the General Assembly are compulsory, but are a guide and a help to the parties if they acquiesce in them.

Remember, agreement is the spirit of the charter of the United Nations.

This matter is still pending. But already it has rendered a great service in cooling off the parties and in keeping the violence from spreading.

In both of these two cases the veto privilege existed, but was not exercised. The Soviet Union opposed in both cases, but did not veto. Instead, it followed the procedure of abstaining from voting. In passing let me point out that this procedure has grown out of experience, and has whatever validity custom can give, because it has been employed by all of the great powers several times.

Now the sixth case: In the Korean case the General Assembly was called on for help when negotiations between ourselves and the Soviet Union on establishing a government in Korea reached an impasse.

Now, a General Assembly Commission is in operation in Korea preparing for a plebiscite. This plebiscite, under United Nations observation, will be held in the whole of Korea if possible; but if not possible, it will be held in the southern zone, which contains at least two-thirds of Korea's total population.

The Soviet Union is not participating in this Korean Commission; but at no time in its history did the veto apply because the Commission is a subsidiary organ of the General Assembly under Article 22, where you cannot have a veto.

The seventh case is still pending. The Palestine case illustrates the basic doctrine that General Assembly recommendations depend wholly on voluntary cooperation. It was brought by Great Britain, the mandatory power, to the General Assembly for recommendation respecting the future government of Palestine. On November 29, 1947, the General Assembly adopted a resolution recommending the partition

of Palestine, but it referred the resolution to the Security Council for action of the following nature:

It is quite important to see that we are exact in this particular case, because of the immense amount of emotion that characterizes the whole problem.

I am reading from a paper which you have, a report by the President to the Congress for the year 1947, of United States participation to the United Nations.

I begin at page 164 at the bottom. This relates to the future government of Palestine and is a part of the General Assembly resolution. Mr. BLOOM. What is the date of that?

Ambassador AUSTIN. It is November 29, 1947.

That is the resolution of Partition with Economic Union.

The General Assembly:

Recommends to the United Kingdom, as the Mandatory Power for Palestine, and to all other Members of the United Nations the adoption and implementation, with regard to the future government of Palestine, of the Plan of Partition with Economic Union set out below:

Here is the important part to which I call your attention:

Requests that

(a) The Security Council take the necessary measures as provided for in the Plan for its implication;

(b) The Security Council consider if circumstances during the transitional period require such consideration, whether the situation in Palestine constitutes a threat to the peace. If it decides that such a threat exists, and in order to maintain international peace and security, the Security Council should supplement the authorization of the General Assembly by taking measures under Articles 39 and 41 of the Charter, to empower the United Nations Commission, as provided in this resolution, to exercise in Palestine the functions which are assigned to it by this resolution ;"

(c) The Security Council determine as a threat to the peace, breach of the peace or act of aggression, in accordance with Article 39 of the Charter, any attempt to alter by force the settlement envisaged by this resolution;

(d) The Trusteeship Council be informed of the responsibilities envisaged for it in this plan:

In other words, Mr. Chairman, (a) (b), (c), and (d) ask the Security Council to take over this partition plan recommended by the General Assembly and breathe life into it.

Why?

Because the Security Council is the only council or agency in the Charter that can give life to a recommendation and carry it into effect. Now, what happened? The United States presented the resolution to accept these requests. What happened? Our resolution got the vote of the United States, the Soviet Union, France, Belgium, the Ukraine, and that is all.

Five votes. And you all know that in order to accept that plan of partition and breathe life into it there had to be a vote of a majority of seven, including the five great powers.

Mr. BLOOM. May I ask a question there, please?

Chairman EATON. Yes.

Mr. BLOOM. China abstained, did it not?

Ambassador AUSTIN. Yes.

Mr. BLOOM. Does that not apply just the same?

Ambassador AUSTIN. It is just the same.

Mr. BLOOM. It is the same in this, with reference to Palestine. When China abstained, you have the same position you have if one of the other five great powers abstained.

Practically, you call it a unanimity of vote in the five great powers, do you not, so why should that not be a unanimity of vote of the five powers?

Ambassador AUSTIN. I am not speaking of that. I am speaking of the fact that there was not even a normal majority. There are 11 members on the Security Council, and all we got was 5 out of 11, whereas we were obliged to get 7 under the Charter, and have in the seven unanimity of the five powers.

Now I see your point: China could abstain.
Mr. BLOOM. She did abstain.

stained. But she did.

It is not that she could have ab

Ambassador AUSTIN. We did not get the seven, you see.

Mr. BLOOM. With the five big powers and then two of the others, that would give you the seven. If China abstains, it is just the same as if Russia abstained on other things.

Ambassador AUSTIN. I do not think you understand the situation. There were only five votes for the resolution. There were seven votes either against the resolution or abstaining. Therefore you did not come to the test of whether there was unanimity among the five great powers.

The point is that we did not even get a simple majority.

Then the next step was tried. We did get a resolution through asking the five great powers to confer upon two points. First, what is the situation in Palestine with respect to whether or not there is a threat to international security and peace; second, what, if any, recommendations will the Security Council give to the United Nations Palestine Commission with respect to implementing the partition.

The five powers consulted with the mandatory power, with the Jewish agency, with the Arab higher committee, with the Palestine Commission and with everybody that had any interest in this matter at all. What was the finding? There was not a threat to international peace. The infiltrations were of a kind that did not amount to an aggression but were local. They did not amount to an aggression by a foreign state. We could not get agreement among the five great powers to recommend to the Security Council a finding of the jurisdictional fact of a threat to international peace.

So that effort wound up in agreement in the Security Council, including four of the five major powers, that the partition plan could not be implemented by peaceful means. Therefore, since the Security Council was not in a position to find that there was a threat to the peace which would enable it to summon armed forces or impose sanctions. It had to go back to the General Assembly, in a special session, in order to seek establishment of a government to take over when the mandatory power gives up its authority, and to do that supreme thing of stopping the massacre.

All this is well known. I only need to point to the fact that the Security Council denied action. That is why the problem of Palestine is still before us in the General Assembly.

Now, the eighth case: In addition to the Security Council and the General Assembly, the resources of the International Court of Justice are being utilized in the pacific settlement of disputes.