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Historical documents

299 Department of External Affairs to Australian Delegation, United Nations

Cablegram [UNY]477 CANBERRA, 9 December 1946

MOST IMMEDIATE

Your U.N.941. [1] This threatened exercise of the veto in a field
in which no such privilege exists is indefensible. To begin with,
the threat should not be taken seriously. If the Assembly were to
be in any way influenced by the Soviet threat of withdrawal in
this instance, the same threat would be used in other matters in
which the Soviet view was not accepted. You should strongly
support the case for San Francisco and in fact in the light of
this threat there should be increased rather than decreased
support from other members. [2]

1 Dispatched 7 December. In it Makin reported that the U.S.S.R.

had threatened to withdraw from the United Nations if its
headquarters were established at San Francisco, and that the
United States had subsequently indicated its support for an East
Coast site.

2 In plenary session of 14 December the General Assembly resolved
that the permanent site for the headquarters of the United Nations
would be at Manhattan (Resolution 100(I)).


[AA:A3196, 1946, 0.23087]
Last Updated: 11 September 2013
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