Office of the Historian
  1. Home
  2. Historical Documents
  3. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1947, The British Commonwealth; Europe, Volume III
  4. Document 314

740.0011 EW (Peace)/2–1147

The Chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations ( Vandenberg ) to the Secretary of State

[ Washington ,] February 11, 1947.

My Dear Mr. Secretary: This will reply to your letter of February 10th (identified as SE) containing the proposed draft report to the President on the Italian and Balkan Treaties. I appreciate your courtesy in submitting the draft for my comment. It would seem to me that the draft is satisfactory. It must necessarily be confined to generalities; and I would think that the draft is as adequate as any such paper could be expected to be.

We shall now confront the question of handling these Treaties in the Senate. Unless we are definitely and deliberately to postpone this process [Page 529] until there has been action by other major powers (and I would welcome your Department’s judgment on this point) I think we might as well tackle the job immediately.

This would permit your own personal appearance as the first witness in the public hearings which our Committee on Foreign Relations will hold.1

Then, I respectfully make this suggestion. No one (including Senator Connally and myself) knows these Treaties quite so well as former Secretary Byrnes. It seems to me that it would greatly lighten your burden (and ours) if former Secretary Byrnes were to be invited to follow you upon our witness stand and take over the major responsibility for presenting the issues from his point of view. This is his “unfinished business” as well as yours and mine.

If this suggestion meets with your approval, I think perhaps we should send him simultaneous messages because undoubtedly he would wish a direct request from you as well as a formal invitation from me.2

With warm personal regards and best wishes,

Cordially and faithfully,

A. H. Vandenberg
  1. Hearings were held on March 4, April 30, and May 1, 2, and 6. Secretary of State Marshall and former Secretary Byrnes testified on March 4 and again on May 6. Treaties of Peace with Italy, Rumania, Bulgaria, and Hungary: Hearings before the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate, on Executives F, G, H, and I (80th Cong., 1st sess.).↩

  2. On February 18 Secretary Marshall addressed a letter, not printed, to the former Secretary of State, James F. Byrnes, asking him to testify (740.0011 EW (Peace)/2–1147).

    Byrnes accepted by letter of February 21, not printed (740.0011 EW (Peace)/2–2147).

    ↩