Assembly 399.

1. Your UNY.491 apparently refers to the Sub-Committee meeting.

[1] During preparation of the draft, Canada and United Kingdom
proposed insertion of a paragraph calling for completion of
measures under Article 43 and India and Egypt also revived
proposals for making references to the withdrawal of troops in
foreign territory.

2. Having regard to the fact that you had instructed us not to
include the paragraph on Article 43 in the Australian resolution
(your UNY.380) [2] and taking the view that the resolution was
being encumbered with questions not directly related to the
immediate objective of initiating action under Article 26, we
voted against inclusion of this paragraph but were in a minority.

Our statement to the Committee in opposition to this paragraph
made the following three points:-

(a) The Assembly need not attempt to decide all the problems of
disarmament but only initiate action and elaborate sufficient
principles to enable work to start on sound lines.

(b) We particularly drew attention to the principles contained in
your UNY.486 [3], and
(c) If we were to attempt to set out in the resolution all the
necessary conditions for completion of disarmament we should
include a great number of others besides withdrawal of troops, for
example, confidence in Security Council.

3. Although we spoke strongly on the above lines, the majority of
the Committee is now in a position where in the attempt to ensure
full Soviet participation they have become entangled in a process
of concessions and counter-concessions which is resulting in a
very confused draft. Our aim, although so far unsuccessful, has
been towards simplification with precision along the lines of
original Australian resolution.