The Big Four deputies are beginning their work to draw up a memorandum on the progress of almost one year’s talks by the Four Power ambassadors on efforts to implement the UN Security Council’s cease-fire resolution. The deputies were instructed yesterday by the ambassadors to draft the report and have it ready by the time they meet again on April 15. The deputies will meet tomorrow. American Ambassador Charles W. Yost met this afternoon with Secretary General U Thant to discuss the Big Four talks that took place yesterday. There was no immediate indication whether this discussion would entail an assessment on what some diplomats see as a tiny step forward by the Four Power ambassadors in having their deputies draw up a memorandum. Mr. Yost stated yesterday at the conclusion of the Big Four meeting that “We have charged our deputies with preparing a memorandum on the progress of our Four Power consultations so far in regard to a Middle East settlement in accordance with Security Council Resolution 242.”
The question that loomed large today, however, was whether agreement to draw up the memo represents a step forward in the Four Power talks and how the memo differs from the “catalog” discussed by the ambassadors on March 19 but then rejected by the Russians. A spokesman for the United States Mission said that the go-ahead on drawing up the memo given by the four ambassadors to their deputies represented a “tiny step” forward, “not a great step forward but just a tiny step,” he emphasized. The spokesman added, however, “I don’t know if they (the deputies) will succeed in drawing up the memorandum.”
Diplomatic sources here saw the agreement by the ambassadors in asking their deputies to draw up the memorandum as a sign that the Russians are taking a less hard-nosed line in the Four Power talks. The U.S. spokesman agreed that the “Soviets have come off a little bit, but just a little bit.” The reason for this softening attitude, he observed, is that the memorandum will not bind the Russians to be explicit about agreements and disagreements among the Four Powers on how far they have come in their talks, unlike the catalog which would spell out in more detail the agreements and disagreements. “The memo just states what has happened,” the U.S. spokesman said. “There is nothing binding in it.”
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