Austin Says Discussions with Marshall on U.N. Confined to Procedure, Not “substance”

Warren R. Austin, U.S. delegate to the United Nations special session on Palestine conferred for over an hour this morning with Secretary of State Marshall on “procedural matters” concerning United States participation in the special U.N. meeting. Under Secretary of State Dean Acheson was also present at the meeting.

In response to questioning by reporters, he said there had been no discussion at this morning’s meeting of “substantive” questions of policy regarding Palestine. Asked to comment on the Arab proposal calling for a full scale discussion at the special session on setting up an independent state in Palestine, Austin replied that the position of this country had been expressed “publicly and continuously” as favoring the limitation of the special session to consideration “of the item for which it was called, namely the British item.”

Questioned as to this country’s attitude toward requiring Britain to commit herself beferehand to abide by the ultimate U.N. decision for settlement of the situation in the Holy Land, Austin replied that he thought that U.N. Secretary-General Trygve Lie had been “satisfied” with the British request as submitted and had accepted it without requiring any further language committing Britain to carry out the recommendations of the U.N. Austin suggested that the United States was in accord with the position taken by the Secretary General. Asked if he planned to make any speech on United States policy on Palestine at the special session, Austin replied that he did not.

Meanwhile, it was learned authoritatively that the U.S. Government feels that since the Jews are not members of the U.N., they are, therefore, not officially entitled to be seated.