The Executive and Liaison Committee of the Universal Postal Union met at Berne, Switzerland on October 11, 1948, with representatives of seventeen countries taking part in the work of the meeting. The Secretary General (Muri) reported on measures taken concerning the following questions: 1) representation of member countries at the sessions of the Committee, 2) extension of the franking privilege to the United Nations and the Specialized Agencies, 3) communication of the decisions of the Committee to the Administrations of the Union which had submitted proposals for the session of April 1948, 4) communication to the Administrations of the Union of the work done by the Committee, 5) formulation of a juridical statute for the Union in Switzerland, and 6) regulations concerning the organization, the work and the supervision of the International Bureau of the Union.

Immediately after the close of the Executive Board's session held from October 25 to November 11, 1948, representatives of seventeen European countries met at a conference at Geneva and outlined the ways in which the World Health Organization could assist in the health rehabilitation of the war-devastated countries in Europe. The following decisions were made: 1) to establish a Bureau of Medical Supplies to advise governments on procurement of essential drugs and to provide supplies in an emergency; 2) to carry out a large-scale research program based on the results of the International Tuberculosis Campaign; 3) to stimulate penicillin production; 4) to set up a special temporary office to deal with the specific problems of the war-devastated European countries; 5) to prepare the integration of the Pan American Sanitary Organization with WHO as a regional body for the Western Hemisphere; 6) to apply new procedures in the field of mental health; 7) to grant $600,000 for fellowships and medical literature; 8) to appropriate $800,000 to assist countries which had requested aid; and 9) to allocate $200,000 to regional organizations of WHO.

During the period under review the activities of the Arab League and of its member states were concentrated on the Palestine dispute. Conversations were held in Cairo on February 14, 1949 between the Palestine Conciliation Commission and Abdul Rahman Azzam Pasha, Secretary-General of the League who later conferred with the Prime Minister of Egypt.

The third session of the biennial West Indian Conference met at Guadeloupe, French West Indies, from December 1 to 14, 1948, and made many recommendations to be followed by the Caribbean Commission. Committee I concerned itself with the report of the Secretary-General (Cramer) who had advised that there was a growing need for undertaking more specific projects which could be tackled within the framework of the organization and within its present resources. The committee recommended that the Commission continue to appoint to permanent positions on the secretariat, West Indians of proved ability; that, before any recommendation of the conference was accepted the Secretary-General should make an estimate of the administrative and financial implications of undertaking the project; that if any project depended for its success on the cooperation of territorial governments the project should not be undertaken before such cooperation was assured; and that the Monthly Information Bulletin should include all available information on legislation affecting social and economic developments in the various territories.

On April 4, 1949 the North Atlantic security alliance treaty was signed in Washington by representatives of Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the United Kingdom, and the United States. When ratified by Belgium, Canada, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and the United States, the treaty would come into force.

The regular quarterly meeting of the Consultative Council of Western Powers was held in London on January 27 and 28, 1949. A communiqué issued on January 28 announced that agreement had been reached on the establishment of a “Council of Europe,” which would consist of “a ministerial committee meeting in private, and a consultative body meeting in public.” There had been sharp controversy over the form which the Council should take, the British favoring representatives with cabinet status and the French, supported by Belgium and Luxembourg, preferring parliamentary representatives.

The Council of the Organization of American States met several times during the early part of 1949. At its meeting on January 5, the Council approved in principle the report of the Committee on Finance for the 1949–1950 budget and received the report of the Committee on Privileges and Immunities submitting a projected multilateral agreement on privileges and immunities of the Organization of American States and a draft agreement between the Council and the United States. The Council also approved the conclusions of the Committee on Inter-American Organizations which had submitted a project of agreement between the Inter-American Statistical Institute which, financially, brought the Institute under the administration of the Council. At a special meeting convened at the request of the Ambassadors of Chile and Guatemala on January 24, the Council resolved not to consider the matter of asylum and safe-conduct for the ex-President of Venezuela since the conditions demanding it no longer existed, but approved a resolution to appoint a committee to study the competence of the Council to consider matters of this nature.

The second session of the South Pacific Commission was held from October 25 to November 2, 1948, in Sydney, Australia. At this meeting the Commission was formally established as a permanent organization, the agreement creating it having been accepted by all six participating governments.

At a meeting on November 12, 1948, members of the Allied Commission considered the Austrian Chancellor's letter concerning the abduction on November 5 of Dr. Margarethe Ottillinger, a high Austrian official of the Ministry of Property Control and Economic Planning who had been detained by Soviet forces at the Enns bridge demarcation line between the United States and Soviet zones. The Chancellor pointed out that this was a serious interference with the functioning of the Austrian Government and requested the Commission to obtain her release. The Soviet High Commissioner (Kurasov) declared that this, as well as other abductions of federal officials by the Soviet authorities, was within the exclusive competence of the Soviet Command and that Dr. Ottillinger had been working against Soviet occupation forces. The Soviet explanation of the case was not accepted by the three other high commissioners.

Currency Reform: On February 3, 1949, it was announced that the United States wished to discard the agreement reached in Moscow on August 30, 1948, whereby the Soviet Union would raise the Berlin blockade in return for the introduction of the eastern mark as the sole currency in the western sectors of Berlin. The United States introduced a new plan by which the western mark would continue to circulate in the western sectors and the Soviet mark in the eastern sector until a municipal government with effective control over the entire city was established. The United States proposal was submitted to the committee of experts appointed by the President of the United Nations Security Council to study the Berlin currency problem. Early in January 1949, the committee proposed a plan based on the principles of the August 30 agreement which recognized the division of Berlin into two separate administrations by recommending a split banking system with quadripartite control over the distribution and circulation of currency, with the eastern mark established as the sole currency of the city, and with additional safeguards against the possibility that the Soviet Union would use its control over the actual issue of the mark to harm the economy of the western sectors. The USSR did not wholly accept the plan, France and the United Kingdom were prepared to work from it, but the United States found it entirely unacceptable and submitted another. The second United States plan called for the use of the eastern mark as an over-all currency, with currency and trade exchanges controlled by a permanent board of trustees made up of citizens of neutral powers.

On February 9, 1949, the Deputies of the Council of Foreign Ministers metin London to resume negotiations on the Austrian treaty. Of the proposed 54 provisions of the treaty, practical agreement had been reached on 39; among the questions still outstanding were 1) disposition of German assets in Austria; 2) frontiers, particularly those between Austria and Yugoslavia; 3) an international guarantee of the independence and territorial integrity of Austria; 4) the repatriation of refugees and displaced persons; 5) future prohibition to Austria of research in and manufacture of armaments; 6) the restoration of or compensation for property of United Nations nationals; and 7) the protection of ethnic minorities.After opening declarations by all representatives of the necessity for, an immediate treaty with the Austrian Government, the Deputies turned to a discussion of Yugoslav territorial and reparations claims against Austria.

On January 25, 1949, a communiqué issued in Moscow announced the creation by six eastern European countries of a new Council of Mutual Economic Assistance. The organization was established at an economic conference attended by representatives of Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Rumania, Czechoslovakia and the USSR.

On December 10, 1948, the United States Departments of State and Army announced that SCAP would direct the Japanese Government to carry out anc effective economic stabilization program calculated to achieve fiscal, monetary, price and wage stability in Japan, as well as to maximize production for export. The nine-point program consisted of the following measures: 1) achievement of a true balance in the consolidated budget by stringent curtailing of expenditures and maximum expansion in total government revenues; 2) assurance that credit extension was rigorously limited to those projects contributing to the economic recovery of Japan; 3) acceleration and strengthening of the program of tax collection; 4) establishment of an effective program to achieve wage stability; 5) strengthening of the coverage of existing price-control programs; 6) improvement of the operation of foreign trade controls and tightening of existing foreign exchange controls to the extent that such measures could appropriately be delegated to Japanese agencies; 7) improvement of the effectiveness of the allocation and rationing system; 8) increasing of production of all essential raw material and manufactured products; and 9) improving the efficiency of the food collection program.

At the beginning of 1948, the Inter-Allied Reparation Agency hoped that substantial numbers of the 858 plants listed by the western zone commanders of Germany in October, 1947, would quickly be made available for distribution under a new procedure adopted by the Assembly of the Agency.

The Council of OEEC at its tenth session which opened in Paris on December 28, 1948, studied and adopted the report on the 1949–50 Program and the interim report on the European Recovery Program. The Council instructed the Secretary-General to submit the interim report to the Economic Cooperation Administration of the United States. In adopting this report the members of the Organization reaffirmed their intention to achieve a joint European Recovery Program and invited members to examine methods for initiating the necessary action to attain this objective, in particular those mentioned in the interim report, and to inform the Organization before January 31, 1949 of their preliminary conclusions.

THE SECURITY COUNCIL,

RECALLING its resolutions of 1 August 1947, 25 August 1947, and 1 November 1947, with respect to the Indonesian Question:

TAKING NOTE with approval of the Reports submitted to the Security Council by its Committee of Good Offices for Indonesia;

CONSIDERING that its resolutions of 24 December 1948 and 28 December 1948 have not been fully carried out;

CONSIDERING that continued occupation of the territory of the Republic of Indonesia by the armed forces of the Netherlands is incompatible with the restoration of good relations between the parties and with the final achievement of a just and lasting settlement of the Indonesian dispute;

CONSIDERING that the establishment and maintenance of law and order throughout Indonesia is a necessary condition to the achievement of the expressed objectives and desires of both parties;

NOTING with satisfaction that the parties continue to adhere to the principles of the Renville Agreement and agree that free and democratic elections should be held throughout Indonesia for the purpose of establishing a constitutent assembly at the earliest practicable date, and further agree that the Security Council should arrange for the observation of such elections by an appropriate agency of the United Nations; and that the representative of the Netherlands has expressed his government's desire to have such elections held not later than 1 October 1949;

NOTING also with satisfaction that the Government of the Netherlands plans to transfer sovereignty to the United States of Indonesia by 1 January 1950, if possible, and, in any case, during the year 1950,

CONSCIOUS of its primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security, and in order that the rights, claims and position of the parties may not be prejudiced by the use of force;

1. CALLS upon the Government of the Netherlands to insure the immediate discontinuance of all military operations, calls upon the Government of the Republic simultaneously to order its armed adherents to cease guerrilla warfare, and calls upon both parties to co-operate in the restoration of peace and the maintenance of law and order throughout the area affected.

This conference of representatives of the Governments of Afghanistan, Australia, Burma, Ceylon, Etypt ‘sic], Ethiopia, India, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Pakistan, Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Yemen, affirming their support of the purposes and principles of the United Nations and the- obligation of all member states to accept and carry out the decisions of the Security Council in accordance with the Charter;

HAVING CONSIDERED the situation in Indonesia in the light of all available data and, in particular, the reports submitted by the Good Offices Committee of the Security Council;

BEING OF the opinion that the Dutch Military action launched on the 18th December 1948, constitutes a flagrant breach of the Charter of United Nations and defiance of the efforts of the Security Council and its Good Offices Committee to bring about a peaceful settlement;

NOTING that the Netherlands authorities have failed to give full effect to the resolutions of the Security Council adopted after that date;

FINDING that this action is directed against the very existence of the Republican Government which the Security Council and several member Governments of the United Nations, including the Netherlands Government itself, have recognized;

CONSCIOUS of the danger to the peace of South East Asia and of the world through the continuance of hostilities in Indonesia;

RECOGNIZING that the people of Indonesia are entitled, according to the principles of the Charter, to independence and the exercise of full sovereign rights;

A. The Commission reaffirms its resolution of 13 August 1948.

B. The Governments of India and Pakistan simultaneously accept supplementary to this resolution the following principles:

1. The question of the accession of the State of Jammu and Kashmir to India or Pakistan will be decided through the democratic method of a free and impartial plebiscite.

2. A plebiscite will be held when it shall be found by the Commission that the cease-fire and truce arrangements set forth in Parts I and II of the Commission's resolution of 13 August 1948 have been carried out and arrangements for the plebiscite have been completed.

3. a. The Secretary-General of the United Nations wiH, in agreement with the Commission, nominate a Plebiscite Administrator who shall be a personality of high international standing and commanding general confidence. He will be formally appointed to office by the Government of Jammu and Kashmir.

b. The Plebiscite Administrator shall derive from the State of Jammu and Kashmir the powers he considers necessary for organizing and conducting the plebiscite and for ensuring the freedom and impartiality of the plebiscite.

c. The Plebiscite Administrator shall have authority to appoint such staff of assistants and observers as he may require.

The Parties to this Treaty reaffirm their faith in the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations and their desire to live in peace with all peoples and all governments.

They are determined to safeguard the freedom, common heritage and civilization of their peoples, founded on the principles of democracy, individual liberty and the rule of law.

Q.—Mr. Secretary, would an attack on aircraft flying over Soviet territory into Berlin under the airlift be an armed attack under the terms of Article 6?

Mr. Acheson said he would think that would be an attack on the armed forces—the occupation forces.

Q.—But if it occurs over the Soviet zone?

Mr. Acheson replied he didn't think it made any difference where it occurred, did it?

Q.—It says: “In this area.”

Mr. Acheson said Article 6 referred to an attack “on the occupation forces of any party in Europe.”

Q.—Doesn't the phrase at the end “in this area” apply?

Mr. Acheson said not to the occupation forces.

Q.—What does that phrase apply to?