Office of the Historian

500.CC/3–1645

Memorandum by the Secretary of State to President Roosevelt

[Washington,] March 16, 1945.

Yesterday and today I have been meeting with Senator Connally’s Senate Bi-partisan Group,63 the B2–H2 Group from the Senate64 and the House Bi-partisan Group65 to review the world security organization developments which occurred at Yalta.

I also answered various questions on the Crimea and the Mexico City Conferences.

All of the meetings were most harmonious and, I believe, constructive.66

E. R. Stettinius, Jr.
  1. Senators Warren R. Austin (Republican) from Vermont; Alben W. Barkley (Democrat) from Kentucky; Guy M. Gillette (Democrat) from Iowa; Elbert D, Thomas (Democrat) from Utah; Wallace H. White, Jr. (Republican) from Maine.↩
  2. Senators Joseph H. Ball (Republican) from Minnesota; Harold H. Burton (Republican) from Ohio; Carl A. Hatch (Democrat) from New Mexico; Lister Hill (Democrat) from Alabama.↩
  3. Representatives Leslie C. Arends (Republican) from Illinois; Sol Bloom (Democrat) from New York; Charles A. Eaton (Republican) from New Jersey; Joseph W. Martin, Jr., Minority Leader (Republican) from Massachusetts; John W. McCormack, Majority Leader (Democrat) from Massachusetts; Robert Ramspeck (Democrat) from Georgia; Sam Rayburn, Speaker (Democrat) from Texas.↩

  4. At Secretary Hull’s suggestion, a committee was set up in the Department on October 19, 1944, to give continuing attention to Congressional and party consultations for the purpose of avoiding partisanship and to keep the establishment of the general international organization out of politics. The three meetings of March 15 and 16 were the last of a series of organized Congressional consultations. Ad hoc consultations of Departmental officials and members of Congress continued during the pre-conference period; such meetings were frequently held with the two Senators and the two Representatives serving on the United States delegation.

    For additional information on these meetings with members of Congress, see The Memoirs of Cordell Hull, vol. ii, p. 1711, and Postwar Foreign Policy Preparation, pp. 380, 384, and 414.

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