This year the annual pre-Assembly talks are four-cornered - the United King­dom, the United States, France and Canada. One talk has already taken place in New York and another will probably take place on Tuesday or Wednesday of next week, September 25-26.

...

Elections to the Security Council

3. The continuing non-permanent members are the Netherlands, Turkey and Bra­zil. The retiring members are India, Ecuador and Yugoslavia. We have promised our support to Pakistan to replace India. We have been informed that the Latin American states are considering Chile or El Salvador as a replacement for Ecuador. I think we should use whatever influence we can against the candidacy of El Salva­dor, which obviously does not meet the primary requirement of Article 23.²

4. The main difficulty in elections to the Security Council will be over the election of the successor to Yugoslavia. The State Department appears to be determined not to support any candidate from a Cominform state. At first they thought of Greece as a possible successor to Yugoslavia and later on of Ethiopia.

5. I am not myself impressed by the arguments against electing a Soviet satellite.³ It seems to me that one serious disadvantage of not electing a Soviet satellite, particularly as long as the Peking Government is not represented at the Security Council, is that the Security Council is obviously being packed against the Russians. This, like the votes at the San Francisco Japanese Peace Conference, tends to mis­lead opinion in our own countries about the comparative strength of the Soviet and the non-Soviet worlds. It seems to me that the only argument against electing a Soviet satellite, such as Poland, is that it increases the difficulty of mustering the necessary seven votes in the Council. I do not see, however, why this should be particularly difficult, except on very rare occasions. If the three Western Powers in the Council are agreed, they will have no difficulty in getting the two Latin Ameri­can votes and the votes of the Netherlands and Turkey. This will give them seven votes. As long as Nationalist China is on the council, they can usually get the Chi­nese vote, and on most issues they ought to be able to get the Pakistani vote. About the only time when they will face difficulties will be on votes on Asian questions, such as Kashmir and Palestine.

6. If the Assembly decides against electing a non-Cominform state to succeed Yugoslavia, I suggest that the successor should come from that great part of the world which lies between Pakistan and the Pacific coast of the Americas which would otherwise be unrepresented on the Council, except by the puppet regime in Formosa. Indonesia might be the best but we could not have three Muslim states on the Council at the same time (Turkey, Pakistan and Indonesia). The choice would therefore seem to lie between Burma and Ethiopia.⁴

E. R[EID]

² L'article 23 de la Charte des Nations Unies decrit la composition du Conseil de securite et les condi­tions d'admissibilite.
Article 23 of the United Nations Charter describes the composition of the Security Council and eligibility of membership.

³ Note marginale :/Marginal note:
I agree [L.B. Pearson]

⁴ Le Ministre a fait valoir le cas de 1'Ethiopie et a ajoute la note marginate suivante :/The Minister underlined Ethiopia and added the following marginal note:
Probably the better of two unsatisfactory candidates L.B.P[earson]