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functions and duties similar to those proposed for the Interim Committee by the United States, would meet, if necessary, before the second part of the session, would carry out the Assembly's work in the meantime, and would suggest a date for the summoning of the second part of the session. The Soviet Union, supported by Byelo-Russia, Chechoslovakia, Poland, the Ukraine, and Yugoslavia, attacked not only the United States proposal, but all alternative proposals and amendments. Claiming that the veto had been used in the Security Council exclusively in the defence of small Powers, Mr Gromyko (Soviet Union) attempted to prove that the proposed establishment of the Interim Committee was aimed at a circumvention of the veto in the interests of the Great Powers (other than the Soviet Union), whose aims were contrary to those of the Charter. Furthermore, the Interim Committee would not be a subsidiary organ of the General Assembly, but a principal organ parallel to the Security Council and equal in rank with the General Assembly and with jurisdiction over questions within the sole competence of the Council. The Interim Committee's right to conduct investigations and appoint commissions of inquiry whenever it deemed necessary and useful would not only conflict with those of the Security Council, but would actually be broader than those of the Council as laid down in Article 34, since the Council could investigate disputes or situations only with the specific aim of establishing whether these disputes or situations were likely to endanger the maintenance of international peace and security. Thus, the establishment of the Interim Committee would undermine the United Nations because it would make the task entrusted to the Security Council under the Charter impossible to perform. It was •directed against the rule of unanimity between the Great Powers, which was the very basis of the United Nations and without which it could not function. The United States proposal was, in short, a flagrant violation of the Charter " —an expression with which the members of the Committee became wearily familiar during the debate. In view of the number of alternative proposals and amendments, the Australian delegation proposed the establishment of a subcommittee for the purpose of arriving at an agreed text. This proposal was opposed by the Soviet Union and its supporters as needless. It was, however, decided to set up a sub-committee composed of representatives of fifteen States, including Chechoslovakia and the Soviet Union. The representatives of these two latter States thereupon declared that, since all the proposals were illegal and quite unacceptable to them, they would be unable to participate in the work of the sub-committee.