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Documents

October 2, 1957

Memorandum by Frank Aiken [on an Interview with Scott McCleod and the Taoiseach]

Aiken made an immediate impression on his arrival in the Twelfth Session of the UN General Assembly in September 1957. He adopted an impartial posture of assessing each issue on its merits and campaigning to remodel international politics around self-determination, humanitarianism, and peace. His exhortation was that only the UN had the moral authority and political legitimacy to put forward global solutions. While he did not propose nuclear disarmament measures specifically, his intent was signaled by his recommendation for a mutual drawback of foreign forces (including their nuclear weapons) in central Europe and his endorsement of a proposal to discuss the representation of China in the United Nations. The Eisenhower administration was hostile to Aiken’s course as outlined in the U.S. ambassador’s audience with Taoiseach Eamon de Valera and Aiken in Dublin on 2 October. The record underlines the Irish concerns about accidental nuclear war due to the proximity of opposing U.S. and Soviet forces in central Europe.  

October 11, 1973

Meeting of Prime Minister Trudeau and Premier Zhou Enlai at the State Guest House (Diaoyutai)

Zhou Enlai offers Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau an extensive history of the Chinese Civil War and Chinese Revolution. Zhou also comments on China's foreign policy positions toward and views on the Soviet Union, nuclear war, Bangladesh, revisionism, and great power hegemony, among other topics.

September 6, 1954

Australian Government Trade Commissioner, Hong Kong, to the Secretary, Department of External Affairs, 'Visit to China by the British Labour Party Delegation'

This is a report on a visit by Clement Attlee's Labor Party delegation to China in August 1954. The report covers wide ground, summarizing the delegates' experiences and views on events in China, and contains a short account of Attlee's conversation with Mao Zedong. Mao and Attlee disagreed about the Soviet Union's policy towards Eastern Europe, and Mao, after defending the Soviet record, in the end admitted that he simply did not know enough about the situation in Eastern Europe. There was also some discussion of Taiwan, though Attlee was given the impression that China would not attack Taiwan for at least 10 years. There is also an interesting quote: "The delegation... received or were confirmed in the impression that the Chinese Government was... living in a world of delusions. The state had been reached where the Central People's Government viewed the outside world not as it was but according to how they thought it should be."