AGREEMENT AT U.N. POSSIBLE

Press, Volume C, Issue 29637, 6 October 1961, Page 13

AGREEMENT AT U.N. POSSIBLE

Russia, U.S. Could Back U Thant (N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) NEW YORK, October 5. I. nited. States and Soviet Union delegates are expected to meet behind Closed doors today to try to compose East* vv est differences over the succession to the late Mr Dag Hammarskjold and hopes are rising in diplomatic quarters that a break through might be imminent.

The United States is reliably reported to be ready to drop its objections to. initial submission of the question to the United Nations Security Council provided that agreement could be obtained with the Soviet Union on an acceptable nominee as acting Secretary-General.

As the two Great Powers prepared to discuss the issue, U Thant, {he resident representative of Burma, was the delegate most prominently mentioned for the interim p .st. Usually reliable sources said there was good -reason for thinking he was acceptable to the Soviet Union as the delegate of an Asian neu- • al State, while the United States was thought to be ready to give him its endorsement.

If there were agreement between the Russians and the Americans on a candidate, it was thought that the Secur-

ity Council might be quickly called into session in hopes of unanimity being reached among its 11 members. The council's recommenda-

tion then would presumably go directly to the General Assembly for endorsement. The United States and Britain previously had contended that the Assembly alone is empowered to make an interim appointment. But objections to council consideration of the question were understood to have been based on the supposition that agreement among its members, particularly the Soviet Union and the Western Powers, was ynlikely. Also that the meeting

would only become interminably bogged down in procedural wrangling, acrimonious substantive debate, and possible vetoes.

All of these possibilities would no longer be applicable if the Soviet Union and the United States agreed privately on tactics and a name before the meeting was formally called.

It was not immediately clear today where the idea of five assistant or deputy Secretaries . General fitted into the new pattern of negotiations. This idea has been prominent for the last day or two at the initiative of a number of States led by Mexico. Argentina and Venezuela.

Until the possibility of East-West agreement increased late last night they had been considering bringing in an Assembly resolution to appoint an acting chief executive and to urge him to appoint five such assistants, drawing these from the Soviet bloc, the Western alliance, and from African, Asian and Latin American groupings. While there was guarded optimism today on the possible outcome of today’s Soviet-United States conference, it was not known whether the Soviet Union

would make the problem less easy to solve by insisting that assistants be appointed by the Assembly. The Western position is that the appointee himself must name his aides. The effect of submitting the issue of the interim appointment of a chief executive to the council was seen in diplomatic quarters as sharply reducing the prospects of giving the job to Mr Mongi Slim (Tunisia), president of the General Assembly. It was thought that the Soviet Union and France both would decline to endorse his candidacy in the council, in which all the Great Powers must reach unanimity for decisions to be taken. Mr Slim previously had appeared to be a favourite prospect, on the supposition that the Assembly, not the council, would make the appointment While U Thant had always been prominently mentioned, his Government was known to have been reluctant to see his name go forward in the absence of Soviet-United States accord. U Thant has served as his country’s resident representative at the United Nations since August, 1957,