I have the honour to report as follows:-
It is because the doctrine of self-determination for all Nations has been for so long axiomatic in American political philosophy that the recent voting of the American delegation on the colonial issues before the Tenth Assembly of the United Nations created confusion in the public mind and evoked criticism at home and abroad. When Mr. Henry Cabot Lodge2 supported France on Algeria his speech had to be so timorous that it greatly displeased the French and, it is said, did not secure a single additional vote in the Assembly for the French stand. The American abstention from the voting on West Irian brought the co-Foreign Minister of Holland, Dr. Luns, to Washington last week to protest to Mr. Dulles on the attitude of the American delegation in New York and to point out to the Secretary of State the anxiety which their uncertainty as to American policy on vital issues before the Assembly, like the question of West Irian, was causing the Netherlands’ and other Western European Governments. It was, however, the vigorous support of the United States for the British stand on the question of Cyprus which kept the question out of the Tenth Assembly. Dr. Luns was careful to emphasise this to Mr. Dulles. And Dr. Lange,3 the Foreign Minister of Norway, who also visited Washington last week recalled to the Secretary of State that Norway had a long history of colonial status and pointed out the danger to NATO of the principal members of UNO throwing their influence against the trend of freedom amongst present day colonial peoples.
The reason for the attitude of the United States on Algeria and Cyprus is clear enough. The United States supported the colonial powers France and Britain on the broad security ground. The United States has bases in both French and British colonial territories which all three Powers regard as indispensable to the system of collective defence worked out with so great pains over a long period of time. And there are good enough legal grounds for regarding both the Algerian and Cypriot problems as, for the time being, matters falling within the domestic jurisdiction of France and Britain respectively within the meaning of Article 2 of the Charter. The time may come, however, if it has not already arrived, in which the powers of the Security Council under Chapter VII of the Charter could be invoked in that connection.
The upsurge of nationalism in Asia and Africa since the end of World War II is as strong as the upsurge of nationalism in Europe after World War I. The easing of tensions, on the death of Stalin, freed it from the inhibitions imposed upon it by the fear of an immediate outbreak of World War III. It was in the midst of the evolution of this phenomenon of the emergence of so many peoples from subjection that the United States had to decide upon its attitude on the colonial issues raised at the United Nations. Preoccupied, in the case of Algeria and Cyprus, with the overriding consideration of collective security, the United States supported the colonial Powers against the colonies and found itself impaled on the American principles of free discussion and national self-determination.
The vote of 28 to 27 in favour of Assembly action on Algeria was the first demonstration after the Bandung Conference (my confidential report of the 4th April last)4 of the significance of that Conference. Of 17 members of UNO which attended it, 15 voted for Assembly action on Algeria, one (Turkey) voted against, and one (Ethiopia) abstained. The 15 which voted in favour of action were supported by five Soviet bloc countries (including the Soviet Union itself), and eight other countries, mostly South American, but including Greece and Yugoslavia to poll the majority of 28. If all the 29 members of the Bandung Conference were members of the United Nations the majority for Assembly action on Algeria would probably have been much greater.
How far the voting reflects an attempt to divide the Assembly along racial lines – the white peoples against the coloured – has been the subject of some controversy. It will be recalled that General Carlos Romulo5 made a striking appeal to the Bandung Conference not to seek a solution of problems along racial lines, or to divide the world upon the basis of a harsh dichotomy of black and white. The Philippines, however, voted with the majority in the Assembly. The coincidence of the identification of coloured with colonial peoples is, it would appear, the true explanation of the voting of the Bandung Conference on the Algerian issue. The episode raises, however, at the same time, the interesting Question as to whether, if the Cypriots were a coloured people, the vote on Cyprus would not have been, as in the case of Algeria, a vote in favour of action by the Assembly.
The effect of the vote on Algeria on the prospects before the proposed Charter Review Conference – if it ever meets – remains to be seen. It is doubtful whether the colonial Powers, quite apart from Russia’s opposition to a review of the veto provisions, would risk throwing the review of paragraph 7 of Article 2 or of Chapter VII of the Charter open to discussion in the light of the vote on Algeria in the Assembly.
Some observers regard the vote on Algeria as an indication that the balance of power has switched to Asia. But that is a question which falls to be discussed rather in the context of a more recent event, namely, the arms deal between Soviet Czechoslovakia and Egypt.6 For the balance of power is a balance of armaments. And the Middle East has, in that connection, become a witch’s cauldron.
