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    "label": "Memorandum from George Elsey to President Harry S. Truman with Related Attachment from \"Current Foreign Relations\"",
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    "title": "Memorandum from George Elsey to President Harry S. Truman with Related Attachment from \"Current Foreign Relations\"",
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    "seq": 21,
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    "ocrText": "-SECRET\n- 18 -\ntrust territory. The Council deferred until its next session, however,\naction on a committee report regarding the organization and functioning\nof visiting missions generally, which the GA had requested the TC to\nreview. It also deferred until its ninth session, which is scheduled to\nconvene between June 1 and 15, consideration of various petitions from\nAfrican trust territories, so that these could be taken up in conjunction\nwith the examination of the annual reports on the African territories.\nThe Council decided to transmit a draft revised text of its Provisional\nQuestionnaire, on which the annual reports for trust territories are\nbased, to the Administering Authorities, with a request for their com-\nments, if possible before May 15.\nThe Ewe Question - The demand for unification\namong the Ewe people, who live both in British and in French Togoland\nas well as in the Gold Coast, has been before the TC since 1947, and\npresented the most potentially controversial problem at the recent ses- -\nsion. The UK and France last year undertook to establish an enlarged\nConsultative Commission to ascertain the real wishes of the whole\npopulation in both territories, but the election procedures used in\nFrench Togoland to select delegates to the enlarged Commission were\nnot satisfactory to the Ewe unification parties. The French Togoland\nEwe unification party therefore refused to participate in the elections,\nand out of sympathy the affiliated party in British Togoland boycotted\nthe first meeting of the Commission. Petitions protesting the elec-\ntions were sent to the UN, and were considered by the Fourth Commit-\ntee of the GA at its fifth session. As a result, the GA adopted a resolu-\ntion impressing upon the TC and the Administering Authorities the im -\nportance of finding an adequate solution to the Ewe problems \"as soon\nas possible and in full accordance with the real wishes and interests of\nthe people concerned\". It recommended that France investigate promptly\nthe practices complained of in connection with the elections in French\nTogoland and report to the TC at its eighth session. The TC, in turn,\nwas requested to report to the next session of the GA on all steps under-\ntaken in connection with the Ewe question. Early in the eighth Council\nsession, the British and French requested our support of draft resolu-\ntion, which they subsequently introduced, under which the TC 1) would\nhave stated that it considered the electoral methods used to have been\n\"such a's to enable all sections of the population to express their true\nopinion, 11 and 2) would have urged the Ewe unfication groups to take\npart in the enlarged Consultative Commission on the basis of an offer\nto appoint to the Commission eight additional representatives from\nFrench Totoland to be chosen by the Ewe unification purty."
}