The British Foreign and Commonwealth Office noted in December 1947 that ”an unusual feature of this part of the work of the MSC is that agreement appears to have been brought, by normal standards of United Nations progress, unusually close. The prospect of success is however, more apparent than real. All these discussions presuppose agreement on the General Principles and such agreement remains remote.” By August 1948, after conflicts such as the Berlin Blockade and 1948 Czechoslovak coup d'état, and despite efforts at compromise by various people including US Secretary of State Dean Rusk, the MSC was essentially defunct.