452 J.-A. PEMBERTON
Much of the uncertainty about UNESCO’s attitude towards the
ISC had been cleared away well before the assembly. On the Friday of
the week that had seen UNESCO settle into its Parisian headquarters,
that is, on September 27, a small meeting was held at UNESCO House
in order to discuss the future of the ISC. Among those representing
UNESCO was Howard E. Wilson, an American who was one of two
assistant secretaries-general under Huxley and who had been seconded
from the Carnegie Endowment where he had been associate director of
the international relations and teaching section, Zimmern and André
De Blonay, this last being head of UNESCO’s Department of External
Relations. Among the non-UNESCO participants were Mayoux and
Vranek, both of whom represented the IIIC, Roger Sedoux, who rep-
resented the French delegation to UNESCO, and Jacques Vernant, who
represented the Commission française de coordination des études inter-
nationales. Happily for the latter group of participants, the UNESCO
representatives at this meeting indicated that UNESCO was ‘interested
in the continuation of the work of the International Studies Conference,’
was prepared to ‘grant it complete autonomy’ and even ‘furnish it direct
grants-in-aid for...[its]...scientific studies.’^88
The outcome of this meeting came as a great relief to Mayoux in
particular. In a letter written a few days after its conclusion, he told
Davis, the latter being not only a colleague but also a personal friend of
Wilson, that he had feared, especially in light of the negative attitude of
the Rockefeller Foundation, that the ISC would die for lack of funds or
worse ‘degenerate into a regional organism’.^89 That it might become a
regional organisation, was the proposal of certain members of the British
group, the general attitude of which was that UNESCO should not serve
(^88) Mayoux to Davis, September 30, 1946, AG 1-IICI-K-V-2.d, UA. See also Jean-
Jacques Mayoux to Pitman B. Potter, October 7, 1946, AG 1-IICI-K-I-24, UA. For
Howard E. Wilson, see Vitray, ‘UNESCO: Adventure in Understanding,’ 24. In 1951, the
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees persuaded the Rockefeller Foundation to
make a substantial grant in order to fund an independent survey into ‘the position of refu-
gees under his mandate.’ The leader of the investigative team was Jacques Vernant. Jacques
Vernant, The Refugee in the Post-War World (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1953),
viii.
(^89) Mayoux to Davis, September 30, 1946, AG 1-IICI-K-V-2.d, UA. For the association
between Wilson and Davis, see International Studies Conference, Verbatim report of the
XIIIth Administrative session, December 16 and 17, 1946, at the Centre d’études de poli-
tique étrangère de Paris, IICI-K-XIV-12, UA, ii, 48.