Extracts from a letter from Frederick H. Boland to Seán Murphy (Dublin)
(Confidential)

The General Assembly’s debate on the Hungarian situation terminated yesterday evening. Early in the morning, the group of sponsors had met and decided to accept the proposal by Sir Pierson Dixon referred to in the second paragraph of page 3 of my report of 11th December.² It also decided that members of the group would either vote against the Indian resolution or abstain. In the result, the twenty-Power resolution was passed by the Assembly by 55 to 8, with 9 abstentions. The abstainers consisted of a number of Arab States plus Greece, Egypt and Finland. Those who voted against the resolution were all members of the Communist bloc.

When the twenty-Power resolution had been adopted, Krishna Menon came to the tribune and withdrew the resolution standing in the names of India, Indonesia, Burma and Ceylon. Mr. Menon’s action in organising this resolution was one of the most unsuccessful initiatives he has taken at the UN within recent years. He was deserted, not only by the Afro-Asian group as a whole, but even by two of his co-sponsors – Burma and Ceylon, who voted for the twenty-Power resolution. The leader of the French delegation remarked to me after the vote that it was the biggest personal defeat which Krishna Menon had suffered since he came to the United Nations.

In the course of a conversation yesterday, Ambassador Wadsworth,³ of the United States delegation, attributed the action of the Hungarian representatives in leaving the Assembly to the boycott hint contained in my speech on the 11th December. He said that this was his belief and the belief of members of his delegation. Mr. Frank Carpenter,⁴ of the Associated Press, who was present at the conversation, said he shared the same view.

[matter omitted]

There is to be a caucus meeting of the Western European countries this afternoon to discuss the proposed increase in the membership of the Security Council and the distribution of the Security Council seats when the membership has been enlarged. The general feeling is in favour of adding two additional seats but I understand that the Afro-Asians are trying to have this number increased to four so as to provide larger representation on the Council for the Asian and African Continents. The Afro-Asian point of view is not likely to be accepted. There is a general feeling that, if the membership is increased by two, one seat on the Council should be definitely allocated to the Communist satellites in Eastern Europe. Soviet Russia is very insistent on this point which most other delegations regard as reasonable. As I reported in my telegram yesterday,⁵ the Spaniards expect to be supported in their candidature for Belgium’s seat by most (but not all) of the Latin-American countries, by the Arab bloc and by a number of other individual countries such as Turkey and Portugal. Ambassador Lequerica told me yesterday that this was the present position. I gathered from the Minister before he left that he was in favour of our voting for Spain on the first ballot, but, if it became obvious that Spain had no chance of getting the seat, we should then switch our vote in favour of Sweden. Unless I hear from you to the contrary by cable, we will follow this course.⁶

[matter omitted]

The IRA attacks in the Six Counties have occasioned somewhat less interest and discussion here than one might expect. They were reported in the papers and the radio news bulletins but the reports attach somewhat less gravity to the attacks than they present in Ireland.

[matter omitted]