The Evening Star (October 22, 1946)
U.N. delegations map programs for opening tomorrow
Truman will address session at 4:30; more diplomats arriving
Stay in New York is up to Molotov, Smuts declares
LONDON (AP) – South African Prime Minister Jan Christiaan Smuts left by plane today for the United Nations Assembly meeting.
Asked how long he expected to remain in New York, Smuts suggested “ask Mr. Molotov.”
NEW YORK (AP) – Diplomats from over the world called their staffs and advisers into last minute conferences today to shape the policies they will present in the meetings of the General Assembly of the United Nations which open tomorrow in Flushing Meadow Park, with President Truman as the welcoming speaker.
Mr. Truman will speak at about 4:30 p.m., Charles G. Ross, presidential secretary, said in Washington today.
Most delegations already were settled in overcrowded New York hotels, but latecomers still were arriving by air from far parts of the globe. Among those due to arrive today were two prospective antagonists – Field Marshal Jan Christiaan Smuts, prime minister and foreign minister of the Union of South Africa, and Mrs. Vijayalakshmi Pandit of India. Her plane trip was delayed by engine trouble at Algiers and then by the TWA pilots’ strike in Shannon, Eire, where she changed planes.
Negotiations reported
Although some negotiations were reported in the wrangles between India and South Africa, Mrs. Pandit – only woman delegation chief – was prepared to carry on a fight in the Assembly against “Jim Crow” conditions allegedly imposed on Indians in South Africa. She is the sister of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, chief minister in India’s new interim government.
The Indian delegation also has organized a campaign which may be sprung to oppose South Africa’s intentions of annexing Southwest Africa, the old German colony which the union administers under a League of Nations mandate. The annexation proposal has been placed before the General Assembly for consideration.
Other league mandates
The disposal of several other league mandates under a trusteeship council seemed assured with the announcement last night that the United Kingdom had submitted terms under which it would agree to trusteeships for Tanganyika, Togoland and Cameroon, all in Africa.
If the British proposals and those of Australia and France for trusteeships over their mandates are accepted by the Assembly, the trusteeship council would be set up as the last major organ of the U.N. to be established. The mandate holders would serve as administering states, with the United States, Russia and China as the non-administering members of the council.
French make offer
France has offered French Togoland and /Cameroon and the Australians have offered their portion of New Guinea.
The American delegation headed by former Sen. Warren Austin of Vermont continued its day-long sessions of combing through the list of problems on the Assembly agenda. It met in almost continuous session yesterday and last night to determine a policy on future needs of the refugee-care agencies after the ending of UNRRA next year and also completed its committee assignments.
Mr. Austin himself will serve on the Assembly’s General (Steering) Committee and the Headquarters Committee, which will point the way for establishment of the world peace capital in nearby Westchester County or may accept one of the rival proposals offered by New York City and the San Francisco area.
Report on sites
The report on five proposed sites surveyed in Westchester County will be made public tonight. As a counter to New York’s offer of 350 acres in the 1939-1940 World’s Fair grounds in Flushing, where the Assembly will meet in the old New York City Building, San Francisco is carrying on its campaign to convince the U.N. that it has more spacious lands to offer with reasonable costs of building construction.
A spirit of optimism and pledge of Soviet co-operation in the Assembly expressed by Russian Foreign Minister V. M. Molotov on his arrival in New York was answered last night in a statement by Mr. Austin, who said:
“I have always believed that this is the sincere attitude of the Russians and expression of it by Mr. Molotov is, of course, very pleasing to all of our people. I am sure that the people of America welcome that greeting as he comes here to this meeting.”
An item of progress was announced almost simultaneously from the slow-paced deliberations of the U.N. Atomic Energy Commission’s No. 2 (political) Committee, which said that Prof. S. P. Alexandrov, Russian delegate, had recommended a world survey to determine where deposits of uranium might be found and mined profitably.
In this first proposal from Russia suggesting a means of control of atomic energy at its source, Prof. Alexandrov said Russia’s own state-owned mines already were classified for uranium possibilities.