Security 52.

1. The Security Council today passed the Australian resolution on
Spain [1] with slight amendments and appointed, Australia, Brazil,
China, France and Poland to the sub-committee, Australia being
nominated as chairman. The sub-committee met immediately after the
Council arose to organise its work.

2. At the request of Poland, Australia agreed to amendment of the
second sentence of resolution by inserting the word 'unanimous'
before 'moral condemnation'. The last sentence was amended to
provide that the sub-committee should report before the end of
May, it being understood that it could ask for more time if
required. The Polish Representative in requesting amendments made
passing reference to the fear that sub-committee might be used for
shelving the issue and Australian Representative [2] seized this
occasion for stating firmly that Australian Delegation's intention
in proposing resolution was that committee should be an active and
effective body and that its studies should assist the Council to
reach a decision promptly.

3. Gromyko announced that he would abstain from voting. He said
that although changes had been made in the text, the resolution
remained essentially the same in substance. It proposed an
investigation in spite of the fact that the discussion in the
Council had clearly shown that the Franco Regime was a danger to
peace. The Soviet was opposed to the resolution because it
proposed a course of negotiation and delay, but as some members of
the Council were still unsatisfied on the information presented to
them and as the Soviet vote would prevent this resolution from
being adopted, he would abstain from voting but in doing so he
directed attention of the Security Council to the fact that this
abstention did not raise a precedent regarding the action of
permanent members.

4. Both the Netherlands and the United States made explicit
reservations on their position in regard to Mr. Gromyko's claim
that he could have prevented the adoption of the resolution.

Australian Representative, recognising that a member might do the
right thing for the wrong reasons and being unwilling to prejudice
the chance of the smooth passage of the resolution by inaugurating
a debate on the veto power, refrained from making any such
reservation. In our view the Security Council was only being asked
to approve the Australian resolution and not to express
concurrence with any of the reasons that influenced the attitude
of various members towards this resolution.

5. The resolution was declared adopted by 10 votes with one
abstention and the chairman [3] immediately named the sub-
committee. Poland then proposed that [4] be made president of the
sub-committee. The Council then adjourned sine die.

6. Immediately after the Council meeting the sub-committee called
an organizational meeting under Hasluck's chairmanship. The object
of calling a meeting immediately was to strengthen the impression
that the committee intended to work effectively and without delay
and this line was stressed in the press conference which Hasluck
was authorised to give immediately after the meeting. The sub-
committee made arrangements regarding staff to be made immediately
available by the secretariat and agreed that a request should be
sent to members of the Security Council and to other members of
the United Nations asking them to submit material helpful to the
committee. The secretariat was instructed to prepare for
submission to the next meeting a synopsis of the statements made
during the Security Council debate and the large mass of material
already received by the secretariat from non-governmental sources.

it was decided that the early working sessions should be held in
private in order to allow members greater freedom in discussing
methods of work and possible sources of information but that the
sub-committee should then meet in public whenever possible. To
suit the convenience of M. Bonnet the next meeting will be held on
Wednesday afternoon but it is doubtful whether secretariat will be
able to have much material ready and the effective work of the
committee is not likely to begin until next Monday.