President To Act If Peking Is Seated At U.N.

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27400, 13 July 1954, Page 11

President To Act If Peking Is Seated At U.N.

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright;) (Rec. 8 p.m.) WASHINGTON, July 11. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee has unanimously approved a proposal designed to end the Congressional uproar over future United States foreign policy should Communist China be admitted to the United Nations. It calls on President Eisenhower to confer with Congress if Communist China is admitted and to make recommendations on whatever changes he thinks necessary in United States fpreign policy. The proposal was drawn up by the Senate Republican leader, Senator William Knowland, who previously had declared that the United States should withdraw from the United Nations should Communist China be seated. Although the proposal gives the President the initiative, Senator Knowland told reporters his own personal view had not been modified in the slightest degree.

The proposal was approved by the committee as an amendment to an authorisation bill for the Administration’s foreign aid programme. The amendment was drafted in consultation with Democratic leaders. It served to soften the wrangling which developed after Senator Knowland told the Senate he would resign the Senate leadership if Communist China were seated and would devote his time to withdrawing the United States from the United Nations. Suggestion by Senator

Senator Alexander Wiley, chairman of the Seriate Foreign Relations Committee, warned today that if the United Nations “makes -the mistake” of seating Communist China, it would seriously affect America’s position toward any support of the organisation. The senator made the remark in an interview with a United Press correspondent. The correspondent interpreted the senator’s statement as meaning the United States might shut off its financial backing of the United Nations.

Washington now contributes onethird of the United Nations budget. Senator Wiley added that he believed the United States could defeat any move to bring the Peking regime into the world organisation. Further support for United States opposition to the admission of Communist China came today from Mr James Byrnes, a one-time "Secretary of State in the Truman Administration. Mr Byrnes, now Governor of South Carolina and a supporter of Mr Eisenhower in the 1952 Presidential election, said he was in “heavy accord” with the attitude of the present Administration towards the issue.