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McDermott was designated Press Relations Officer. G. Hayden Raynor was named special assistant to work with the Under Secretary in the negotiations. The executive secretariat was composed of Mr. Hiss, executive secretary; Mr. Rothwell, assistant executive secretary; three assistants, Donald B. Eddy, Col. David Marcus (United States Army), and Lt. Frederick Holdsworth (United States Navy), and James F. Green as documents officer.

By the fifth meeting of the American Group, on August 7, Mr. Fletcher was able to attend, thus completing the Group. Meetings beginning at this time were all held at Dumbarton Oaks. Mr. Stettinius as Acting Secretary presided over the five meetings between the seventh and fifteenth, and by reason of the Secretary's developing consultations with Governor Dewey on August 16 and 17, Mr. Stettinius also was Chairman of the two meetings on those dates. This series constituted the review meetings of the American Group before the Conversations commenced.

In the meetings, beginning August 7, discussion largely centered on the Proposals. The minutes were separated into two parts: all socalled business matters of negotiation and arrangement reported to the meetings or raised there constituting Part I, and those on the substantive discussions, Part II. The purpose of this substantive discussion, aside from briefing all members thoroughly on the questions involved in each provision of the Tentative Proposals and on the reasons the given provision was favored, was to review the questions yet unsettled and likely to come up in the course of negotiation, and to arrive at proposals on them. As will be apparent from the preceding pages, it was impossible to pursue this study and consideration of the American position with exact knowledge of the Soviet proposals until after August 14, or of the Chinese proposals during any of this series, but the British views were available.

The substantive discussions in the full Group commenced after its three sections, now "groups," had begun to review the Proposals and to report their comment. A few shifts in their membership had been made. “Group I," composed of Mr. Pasvolsky, Chairman, Mr. Bowman, General Embick, Mr. Fletcher, Mr. Grew, and Admiral Hepburn, began work on July 19, 1944. The last two of its seven meetings were joint sessions with "Group II" to consider several difficult issues concerning pacific settlement and related voting procedures. "Group II," the members of which were Mr. Hackworth, Chairman, Mr. Cohen, and Mr. Hornbeck, started its meetings July 12, holding six meetings separately before the two joint meetings referred to above. "Group III," constituted of Mr. Dunn, Chairman, Generals Strong

'Additional assistance was made available later by the Army and Navy in regard to security, transportation, and other needed services.

and Fairchild, Admirals Willson and Train, and Edwin Wilson, convened July 13. It held eight meetings to and including August 18, several of which were held with Mr. Pasvolsky as acting Chairman. Minutes were not kept for the latter group but were kept for the first and second.

These three small study groups ended their meetings on the Thursday and Friday before the negotiations commenced. The groups were established for critical study of the Tentative Proposals, and to assist such study, papers entitled "Basic Questions" were placed before them. In these papers each section or chapter of the Tentative Proposals was made the subject of analysis by the staff of the Division of International Security and Organization. They were thus presentations designed to select and sharpen the important questions at issue through the entire range of the Tentative Proposals. They were written according to the following outline: the tentative United States proposal, including an interpretation where complexities were involved; the British proposal if available; League of Nations experience as provided in the Covenant and developed between the wars; and any alternatives for consideration in the case of any provision on which some query existed in the minds of the staff or had been raised in prior discussions in the Informal Political Agenda Group.

This documentation also presented as basic questions whether an interim consultative security commission for the period between the end of hostilities and the establishment of the permanent security organization should be proposed to deal with world security problems and, similarly, whether the European Advisory Commission should be reconstituted at the close of hostilities as a European High Commission having wider membership and competence. In addition, questions concerning the role of local and regional agencies in the maintenance of security and peace were analyzed in this series. The papers were completed, August 5, but by August 15 had been revised as "Basic Questions and Comparisons" in order to include in the analysis the Soviet proposals just received and translated and to take into account the discussions already held on the draft.

These papers formed the agenda for the final discussions of the American Group before entering the Dumbarton Oaks Conversations. Each member was supplied by the staff not only with the official texts of all proposals and the "Basic Questions" papers. He was also supplied with a summary of pertinent official statements and views by all governments; a working book containing a detailed commentary on every clause of the Tentative Proposals, including statements of alternatives rejected and the reasons for their rejection; and another work. ing book of detailed papers, analyses of past experience relevant to the field of each member's assignment, and other reference documents. Some of the amendments of the Tentative Proposals resulting from

the thirty-nine days of discussion and review by the three "groups" were designed to improve clarity; others were made to take into account desirable modifications or additions that had been developed during this fundamental reappraisal of the Proposals. In these the views emerging from the congressional and other consultations were borne in mind. All were reported for discussion in the meetings of the American Group as a whole and it then made the decisions required, subject when consequential to the approval of the Secretary. Some of the changes were communicated as such to the other participating Groups during the negotiations; otherwise they were used to guide the American participants. Although the last meetings of the three small groups were on August 17 and 18, the meetings of the full American Group concluded on the morning of August 17, 1944. This meeting consisted of a last reading of the United States Tentative Proposals containing the amendments that had been approved.

The substantive amendments were of two kinds, those that filled out the Tentative Proposals and those that modified provisions. The most important of them were considered by Secretary Hull with Messrs. Dunn, Hackworth, and Pasvolsky on August 19. They related to eight questions, which reflected the nature of the review that had been given the Proposals in this period: Should the executive council have a right to impose terms of settlement of a dispute? Should great powers that are parties to a dispute be able to vote in decisions concerning such dispute? Should elected members of the council serve two-year terms or one? (Should France have a permanent seat on the council and should the question of a permanent seat for a Latin American state— Brazil-be raised?) Should the basic voting requirements in the council be two-thirds or a simple majority? Should there be provisions for withdrawal and for suspension of members? Should provision be made for ad hoc judges on the Court? And should the question of an Interim Security Commission and a European High Commission be raised in these conversations? It was decided that the last of these so-called "open questions" should not be raised in the coming conversations.

The amended Proposals, with certain adjustments made in consultation with the Secretary and a memorandum of recommendation on the first seven of the above questions, were taken up with the President on August 24. This discussion was attended by Messrs. Stettinius, Bowman, Dunn, Hackworth, and Pasvolsky. The President approved the Proposals. He also approved a recommended position that the United States should insist on the inclusion of economic and social matters in the scope of the organization. It was in the course of this talk that the President expressed preference for giving the name "The United Nations" to the new organization. At the same time he requested

recommendations on its location. For the seat of the Court, he preferred The Hague. The definitive American position on all the open questions was not decided in this discussion. Those that remained unsettled were further discussed during the negotiations, which by this date were just starting.

These meetings of the American Group in July and August 1944 were a part of the far-from-finished preparation in this field. They marked, however, the end of the preparation to develop, through American study and effort alone, the views that we were to advance at Dumbarton Oaks.

The preparation so made was now to be completed through the processes of negotiation and through further thought during the interludes between negotiations-first among the major powers, later among the American republics and through diplomatic conversations with other powers, and finally among the United Nations as a whole. These final processes covered the span of the next nine months. They were wholly characteristic neither of usual international negotiations nor of usual formulation of policy. The Dumbarton Oaks Conversations inaugurated these final processes. At the same time, seen from the standpoint of August 1944, the negotiation of the major-power proposals which was the objective at Dumbarton Oaks marked by and large the end of advanced preparation in this field.

CHAPTER XV

Dumbarton Oaks Conversations and Political Consultations

T

HE DUMBARTON Oaks Conversations commenced on Monday morning, August 21, 1944, and were opened by Secretary Hull with a gavel made from the U. S. S. Constitution. They lasted a total of seven weeks, and were held in two phases: the first, ending September 28, between the representatives of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics; the second, beginning September 29 and ending October 7, between representatives of the United States, the United Kingdom, and China.

Since the Conversations were in the nature of meetings of high technical and diplomatic representatives to prepare joint views to refer back to their respective Governments for consideration, the discussions were held in secrecy. However, the opening sessions initiating each of the two phases were open to the press and photographers; the heads of the three participating Groups, especially after urging by the press for fuller news on August 24, issued joint communiqués approximately semiweekly; the President talked on the problems of international organization at some length during his press conference on August 29; the Under Secretary held some "off-the-record" talks with correspondents; and press conferences were held at the close of each phase.

The Conversations began energetically and with common desire for success. A high degree of cordiality and courtesy as well as of informality characterized all the discussions, even at the times of deadlock and during the occasionally prolonged periods of waiting in the first phase for instructions on specific issues. Realization was general that the movement of the war required rapid progress if the responsibilities of victory were to be met and full advantage taken of its opportunities. In Western Europe, Allied forces had landed in southern France on August 15, and on the 25th and 26th, Paris and Marseilles were freed and the Vichy regime terminated. By September 14, Brussels had been retaken; the Belgian Government had returned home; and Luxembourg had been freed. The Battle of Germany then opened as Allied forces crossed the German frontier.

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