Assembly 65.

1. Report of the Interim Committee on Headquarters recommending
that permanent headquarters of the United Nations should be
established in the North Stamford - Greenwich district about 40
miles from New York City was presented last night to the Assembly
Committee on Headquarters.

2. Hodgson in a vigorous speech opposed the adoption of the
report. He traced history of consideration of subject pointing out
that both it the Preparatory Commission and the Interim Committee
all sites except those near Boston or New York had been eliminated
arbitrarily without any examination of facts. The Australian
Delegation had voted against this limitation at every stage taking
the view that after the Preparatory Commission had established
certain qualifications and criteria for headquarters all these
criteria should have been applied. In practice the only criterion
applied had been distance from a large city and at no time had a
close examination been made of all information available. This
procedure was-
(a) Unjust to those authorities which had made other proposals,
and
(b) Was unlikely to result in selection of site best suited to the
United Nations.

Primary concern must be to choose the best site available having
regard not only to the present but to the future needs and
numerous qualifications of various sites should be carefully
weighed one against the other. The Australian Delegation objected
to the adoption of the report of the Interim Committee-
(a) Because the Interim Committee had gone beyond powers delegated
to it by the Preparatory Commission in recommending a single site
in a limited area;

(b) The report had been made without examination of all sites
offered or of all information available;

(c) We were by no means convinced that the site recommended was
the best obtainable and in this connection we referred
particularly to climatic conditions, displacement of local
population, nearness to New York and risk that United Nations
capital would be dominated by New York, highly unsatisfactory
proposals in regard to temporary headquarters at New York and the
likelihood that as the proposed site was in one of the most
expensive estates in the world the initial cost of acquiring land
would be enormous. 3. Finally Australia moved that the report be
rejected, that the Assembly take steps for the selection of
temporary headquarters in the United States and that a special
committee be appointed by the Assembly to report to the September
meeting re permanent headquarters.

4. So far we have obtained support from Bolivia and partial
support from Egypt but have been strongly opposed by the United
Kingdom and Brazil on all points of our arguments and by Uruguay
on the argument that the action of the Interim Committee was ultra
vires. One of the weakest sections of the Interim Committee Report
is that concerning temporary headquarters and as the debate
proceeds we may be able to gain additional support for an attack
from this angle. The Committee is meeting again this morning.