Evatt and Smuts in San Francisco
2007; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 96; Issue: 389 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/00358530701292405
ISSN1474-029X
Autores Tópico(s)German History and Society
ResumoAbstract This article compares the Australian H. V. Evatt and the South African J. C. Smuts as their countries' foreign ministers at the time when the United Nations Charter was drafted. It shows that Smuts, long considered a statesman of international stature, was less adept at the game of international politics UN-style than Evatt, a relative neophyte on the world stage. Key words: EvattSmutsUnited Nations CharterArticle 2(7)1945 Acknowledgement I am grateful to Dr Lorna Lloyd for her comments on this article. Notes 1. P. M. C. Hasluck, Diplomatic Witness: Australian Foreign Affairs 1941 – 1947, Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1980, pp. 199 – 200. 2. Known officially as the United Nations Conference on International Organization (UNCIO). 3. J. Van der Poel (Ed.), Smuts to Hofmeyr, 6 May 1945, Selections from the Smuts Papers, Vol. VI, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973, p. 534. 4. National Archives and Records Service of South Africa (NARS), BTS, 136/1, Vol. 3, Cypher telegram, Smuts to Hofmeyr, 2 June 1945. 5. Cmd. 6560, Dumbarton Oaks Conversations on World Organisation, 21 August – 7 October 1944, Statement of Tentative Proposals, Chapter V, B, 1. 6. The treatment of Indians question opened the door to a full-scale and decades-long examination of the South African government's racial policies at consecutive sessions of the General Assembly up to the 1990s. It and the annual item on South West Africa, which South Africa itself had initially placed on the agenda, fed off each other and together both compounded the government's difficulties. 7. Commonwealth Parliamentary Debates (CPD), 26 February 1947, p. 160. See also the delegation's report on the San Francisco Conference, i.e. The Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia, United Nations Conference on International Organization, Report by the Australian Delegates, No. 24 [Group E.]-F. 4311, pp. 19 – 21, paras 80 – 90. 8. W. J. Hudson, Australia and the New World Order: Evatt at San Francisco, 1945, Canberra: Research School of Pacific Studies, Australian National University, 1993, pp. 107 – 108. Chapter 8 of the book (pp. 92 – 111) is devoted to this issue. 9. Report by the Australian Delegates, No. 24 [Group E.]-F.4311, para 53, p. 15. 10. “Nothing contained in the present Charter shall authorize the United Nations to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state or shall require the Members to submit such matters to settlement under the present Charter; but this principle shall not prejudice the application of enforcement measures under Chapter VII.” N. Harper and D. Sissons, Australia and the United Nations, New York: Manhattan, 1959, pp. 144 – 145. 11. L. M. Goodrich and E. Hambro, Charter of the United Nations: Commentary and Documents, Boston, MA: World Peace Foundation, 1946, p. 72. 12. See L. M. Goodrich, The United Nations, New York: T. Y. Crowell, 1959, pp. 74 – 79; R. B. Russell, A History of The United Nations Charter: The Role of the United States 1940 – 45, Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1958, pp. 900 – 910; M. S. Rajan, United Nations and Domestic Jurisdiction, 2nd ed., London: Asia Publishing House for Indian Council of World Affairs, 1961, pp. 32 – 47; and ‘Dulles wins plea to bar League from meddling in domestic issues’, The New York Times, 16 June 1945. 13. P. M. C. Hasluck, ‘Australia and the formation of the United Nations’, Royal Australian Historical Society, Journal and Proceedings, XL(III), 1954, p. 178. 14. Report by the Australian Delegates, No. 24 [Group E.]-F.4311, para.153, pp. 29 – 30. 15. A. S. Watt, Australian Diplomat: The Memoirs of Sir Alan Watt, Sydney: Angus and Robertson in association with the Australian Institute of International Affairs, 1972, p. 65. 16. S. Pienaar, South Africa and International Relations between the Two World Wars: The League of Nations Dimension, Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press, 1987, p. 99. 17. S. 1-'32, The Parliament of the Union of South Africa, The Senate (Fourth Session—Sixth Parliament), Correspondence between the Department of External Affairs and the Cape League of Nations Union regarding the question of the accession of the Union of South Africa to the General Act for the Pacific Settlement of International Disputes, p. 4. 18. See C. B. H. Fincham, Domestic Jurisdiction: The Exception of Domestic Jurisdiction as a Bar to Action by the League of Nations and the United Nations: A Contribution to the Study of Article 15, Paragraph 8, of the Covenant and Article 2, Paragraph 7, of the Charter, Leiden: Sijthoff, 1948, p. 15. 19. See W. J. Hudson, Billy Hughes in Paris: The Birth of Australian Diplomacy, West Melbourne: Thomas Nelson (Australia) in association with the Australian Institute of International Affairs, 1978, pp. 54 – 59. 20. H. D. Hall, Commonwealth: A History of the British Commonwealth of Nations, London and New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1971, pp. 774, 956, fn. 8. Eric Louw also cited Smuts to that effect at the General Assembly's 577th plenary meeting on 15 November 1956 (p. 33, para. 111 of the plenary records of the 11th session). 21. B. G. Fourie, Brandpunte: Agter die Skerms met Suid-Afrika se bekendste Diplomat, Cape Town: Tafelberg, 1991, p. 35. 22. B. G. Fourie, ‘Buitelandse woelinge om Suid-Afrika 1939 – 1985’, unpublished manuscript, 1991, p. 34. 23. Documents of the United Nations Conference on International Organization San Francisco, 1945, Vol. III, Dumbarton Oaks Proposals, Comments and Proposed Amendments, English Text, London and New York: United Nations Information Organizations, pp. 474 – 479. 24. See first attachment to NARS, BTS 136/1, Vol. 4, Andrews to Secretary for External Affairs, 20 July 1945, pp. 5 – 6, paras 16 – 18. 25. See, for example, G. P. Jooste's statement on the occasion of the inscription of the apartheid item on the General Assembly's agenda for the first time. General Assembly Official Records (GAOR), 381st plenary meeting on 17 October 1952, pp. 53 – 59. 26. British Commonwealth Meeting (BCM) (45), 5th meeting, 6 April 1945, p. 11. 27. Hasluck, ‘Australia and the formation of the United Nations’, p. 176. 28. Hasluck, Diplomatic Witness, p. 27. 29. Ibid., title of Chapter 19, pp. 188 – 206. Forde and Evatt, in that order, eventually signed both the Charter and the report on the San Francisco Conference, the latter as ‘delegates’. UNCIO Docs, Vol. 15, p. 490; and Report by the Australian Delegates, No. 24 [Group E.]-F.4311. 30. C. A. Hughes, Mr Prime Minister: Australian Prime Ministers 1901 – 1972, Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1976, pp. 133 – 135. 31. A. S. Watt, The Evolution of Australian Foreign Policy 1938 – 1965, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968. 32. See ibid., pp. 82 – 84; and Report by the Australian Delegates, No.24 [Group E.]-F.4311, Annex H, pp. 71 – 75. For the New Zealand amendments, see Department of External Affairs, Publication No. 10, New Zealand and the San Francisco Conference: Amendments to the Dumbarton Oaks Proposals for the establishment of a General International Organisation advanced by the Prime Minster of New Zealand, Wellington, 1945, pp. 11 – 19. 33. Hasluck, ‘Australia and the formation of the United Nations’, p. 167. 34. See D. B. Sole, ‘“This above all”: reminiscences of a South African diplomat’, unpublished manuscript, 1990, p. 87. 35. Senate Debates (Sen. Deb.), 20 March 1946, Col. 441. 36. UNCIO Docs, Vol. 15, p. 507. 37. Sen. Deb., 23 March 1945, Col. 556. 38. Sole, ‘“This above all”’, p. 87. 39. NARS, BTS, 136/1/3, Vol. 1, High Commissioner, London to Secretary for External Affairs, No. 339, 13 March 1945. 40. L. Egeland, Bridges of Understanding: A Personal Record in Teaching, Law, Politics and Diplomacy, Cape Town and Pretoria: Human and Rousseau, 1977, pp. 168 – 169. 41. Louis Esselen's complaint to the American Minister, Lincoln MacVeagh, United States National Archives, RG 59, DS 848A.00/594, MacVeagh to Secretary of State, No. 137, 17 March 1943, p. 2; and No. 370, 9 November 1943, p. 2. 42. Van der Poel, Smuts to M. C. Gillett, 4 March 1945, Selections from the Smuts Papers, Vol. VI, pp. 526 – 527. 43. H. G. Nicholas, The United Nations as a Political Institution, 5th ed., London: Oxford University Press, 1975, p. 2. 44. Not only that but it has been disclosed that, by intercepting diplomatic cable traffic, the Americans “knew in advance the negotiating positions” of almost all the participants in the San Francisco Conference. This “played a major role in enabling America to fashion the United Nations into the organization it wished”. S. Schlesinger, ‘Cryptanalysis for peacetime: codebreaking and the birth and structure of the United Nations’, Cryptologia, XIX(3), 1995, pp. 217, 219. See also W. H. Honan, ‘War decoding helped US to shape UN’, The New York Times, 23 April 1995. 45. See C. Eagleton, ‘The Charter adopted at San Francisco’, American Political Science Review, XXXIX, 1945, p. 936. 46. Sen. Deb., 1945, Col. 615. 47. House of Assembly Debates (HA Deb.), Vol. 52 (19 March 1945), Cols. 3735, 3740. 48. Hasluck, Diplomatic Witness, p. 292. See also CPD, Vol. 191, 24 September 1947, pp. 177 – 179. 49. Hasluck, ‘Australia and the formation of the United Nations’, p. 170. 50. Egeland, Bridges of Understanding, p. 145. 51. F. Stuart, Towards Coming of Age: A Foreign Service Odyssey, Nathan, Queensland: Griffith University, Division of Asian and International Studies, Centre for the Study of Australian – Asian Relations, 1989, p. 69. 52. Watt, Australian Diplomat, p. 64. 53. Ibid., p. 65. 54. HA Deb., Vol. 55 (7 February 1946), Col. 1273. 55. Ibid. (6 February 1946), Cols. 1205 – 1206. 56. Ibid., Cols. 1188 – 1189. 57. Ibid. (7 February 1946), Col. 1274. 58. See P. M. C. Hasluck, The Government and the People, 1942 – 1945, Canberra: Australian War Memorial, 1970, pp. 503 – 504. 59. Fincham, Domestic Jurisdiction. 60. Ibid., pp. 95, 144, 184 – 187. 61. They were instructed to withdraw when the treatment of Indians and apartheid items came up for discussion. 62. NARS, BTS 136/1, Vol. 3, Addressed Washington No. 37, repeated Cape Town No. 486, 9 April 1945. See also Heaton Nicholls to Acting Prime Minister, 17 April 1945, Attachment, pp. 2 – 3. 63. NARS, BTS 136/1, Vol.3, Addressed Washington No.37, repeated Cape Town No. 486. 64. V. C. Gildersleeve, Many a Good Crusade, New York: Macmillan, 1954, p. 340. 65. See UNCIO Docs, Vol. X, p. 434; Doc. 260 (ENGLISH), II/4/8, 12 May 1945, p. 2; and International Court of Justice, Pleadings, Oral Arguments, Documents, South West Africa Cases (Ethiopia v. South Africa; Liberia v. South Africa), Vol. II, 1966, para. 31, pp. 33 – 35. 66. Egeland, Bridges of Understanding, p. 167. 67. HA Deb., Vol. 52, 22 March 1945, Cols 3983 – 3984. 68. The Chicago Tribune, 5 May 1945. Half a generation earlier the American press had idolized Smuts. On the occasion of his 1929 visit to the USA one commentator wrote that, from the “remote and uncertain base of influence” represented by his membership of a nation numbering “fewer white citizens than one-seventh of New York State”, Smuts had “stepped onto the stage of world events at their climax and influenced profoundly the destinies of mankind”. P. W. Wilson, ‘Smuts, son of veldt, visits US’, The New York Times, 29 December 1929, Section 9, p. 1. 69. H. M. G. J. Gladwyn, The Memoirs of Lord Gladwyn, London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1972, p. 163. See also BCM (45), 5th meeting, 6 April 1945, pp. 11 – 12. 70. See, for example, HA Deb., Vol. 52, 22 March 1945, Col. 3985. 71. GAOR, First Sess., Second Part, Joint Committee of the First and Sixth Committee, 1st meeting, 21 November 1946, pp. 3 – 4. 72. R. N. Gardner, ‘Eleanor Roosevelt's legacy: human rights’, The New York Times, 10 December 1988. The date was the fortieth anniversary of the declaration's adoption. Gardner was Professor of International Law at Columbia University, New York. 73. Gildersleeve, Many a Good Crusade, p. 344. 74. W. K. Hancock, Smuts: The Fields of Force 1919 – 1950, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968, p. 433. 75. A. J. P. Taylor, English History 1914 – 1945, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965, footnote, p. 137. 76. Van der Poel, Smuts to Moore, 2 March 1947, Selections from the Smuts Papers, Vol. VII, p. 124. 77. A British reviewer of Hancock's Smuts: The Fields of Force 1919 – 1950 called him a ‘blinkered genius’. R. A. Oliver, ‘Blinkered genius’, Journal of African History, IX(3), 1968, pp. 491 – 494. 78. See his The Art and Practice of Diplomacy, London: Chatto & Windus, 1961, pp. 10 – 12; and Hancock, Smuts, pp. 431 – 433. 79. See Van der Poel, Smuts to M. C. Gillett, 14 January 1947, Selections from the Smuts Papers, p. 117. 80. Clement Attlee said of him: “On the strategical side Smuts was exceptional. He had a complete grasp of the situation not only when he was in London but from a distance when he got back. You could see it in all his letters. They were most helpful.” C. Attlee, Twilight of Empire: Memoirs of Prime Minister Clement Attlee, New York: Barnes, 1962, p. 54. Anthony Eden wrote: “There was no man living whose wisdom I respected more”. The Earl of Avon, The Eden Memoirs: The Reckoning, London: Cassell, 1965, p. 68. The six volumes of Churchill's The Second World War contain many admiring references to Smuts. Churchill also quoted at length from their correspondence. 81. Taylor, English History, p. 82. 82. David Lloyd George, The Truth about the Peace Treaties, Vol. 1, London: Gollancz, 1938, pp. 619 – 620, also 260 – 261; and Lloyd George, War Memoirs of David Lloyd George, London: Odhams Press, 1938, Vol. I, p. 1046; Vol. II, p. 1087. For the text of Smuts's paper see D. H. Miller, The Drafting of the Covenant, Vol. 2, New York: Putnam, 1928, pp. 23 – 60. 83. D. Dilks, The Diaries of Sir Alexander Cadogan O. M. 1938 – 1945, New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1972, p. 467, Diary entry for 3 August 1942. 84. Ibid., p. 745, Diary entry for 23 May 1945. See also Watt, The Evolution of Australian Foreign Policy, pp. 98 – 100. Watt, Australian Diplomat, pp. 82 – 83 records that Evatt offended the Russians at the 1946 Paris Peace Conference. 85. R. G. Menzies, The Measure of the Years, London: Cassell, 1970, p. 155. Of course, Menzies was his political opponent. 86. For various reasons, Watt, The Evolution of Australian Foreign Policy, p. 85 feels that the San Francisco Conference was the high point of Evatt's influence as Minister of External Affairs. Evatt would no doubt have been less successful if he had been weighed down by the millstone of South African-style domestic affairs. 87. Which is not to say he would have succeeded if they had been better handled. The point is that the way they were handled guaranteed defeat. 88. Sen. Deb., 23 March 1945, Col. 557. 89. See W. K. Hancock, Smuts and the Shift of World Power, London: School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 1964, pp. 15 – 19. 90. Hasluck, ‘Australia and the formation of the United Nations’, pp. 176, 177. 91. Ibid., p. 178.
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