840.20/4–1848
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Acting Secretary of State
| Participants: | Senator Arthur H. Vandenberg |
| Acting Secretary, Mr. Lovett |
The Senator read very carefully our revised paper1 on Western Union and gave considerable attention to the approach indicated in the three opening paragraphs.
He said that the basic position seems to him to be reasonable; that he realized that a statement by the President without something to back it up from Congress was inadequate and that his only doubt arose out of what he referred to as the consuming jealousy of the House with respect to the Senate in such matters. This comment was made while talking on the point of the initiation of action by the legislative and executive branches “on the same day”. He said he felt that this was quite impossible, no matter how desirable, unless the Executive was prepared to take the risk of acting on the Senate Resolution2 without similar association with the House. I asked him if he thought it was necessary that the House be involved in this since it was clearly a matter either of a treaty, an agreement, or a pact as the ultimate contemplated purpose of the President’s invitations. The Senator replied that, of course, it was a matter for the Senate, but that that would not remove the House desire to “get in on it”, particularly since the Senate Resolution would deal with UN problems, and that the House had already had some dozen or more bills introduced for procedural changes in the UN charter.
After considerable discussion on this point, I said that I would like to consult the Departmental advisers before putting this point up to the President, since I felt that it would involve in the last analysis a decision by the President between two risks. While the Senator would not say so, he intimated that he felt we would have to be content with Senate action if we were to get any affirmative statement prior to recess or adjournment before the political conventions.
[Page 93]On the substance of the recommendations, Senator Vandenberg was prepared to accept paragraphs 1 and 2 in principle if language could be drafted to meet his detailed objections. It was for this purpose that we met again Sunday evening.
In general, his objections to the present language in paragraph 1, subsection 1 of the recommendations, were that the Brussels treaty was not clearly enough drafted at the present time to see what the mutual engagements are and that the Rio treaty went beyond what he felt we should take as engagements in that it permitted majority vote control of member action. He felt that this was unwise and unnecessary when applied to any North Atlantic agreement. He mentioned that it would be difficult enough to back up the President’s strong statement contemplated in paragraph 2 (3rd full paragraph thereunder) if, on the one hand, we stated that we reserved the right to determine whether an armed attack had occurred and the immediate measures the United States might take in these circumstances, while the basic regional agreement itself contained the principle of majority vote transposed from the Rio pact. I did not press this point with him but concentrated on the development of adequate and simple language to denote the intent of Congress.
With respect to the 2nd subsection of paragraph 1 of the recommendations, the Senator said that he could not accept language which merely followed the pattern of the Truman statement of March 12 [17] throwing an open commitment to any country in the world which was “free”. He objected particularly to the language “to assist any free country in Europe, etc.” He also thought that the principle of priority of assistance was not impressive or useful compared with the necessity for a direct statement of Congressional intent to become associated with a pact which provided for mutual aid and self-help. He stressed the point that such matters could be dealt with by the Executive branch but that it would be necessary to have the Senate devote its attention to fundamental points only if action was to be obtained.
Accordingly, after considerable discussion and attempts to rewrite, he
agreed to the following redrafted paragraphs (under recommendations
subsections 1 and 2) to be incorporated in a Senate resolution dealing
with the UN problem. The redrafted subsections at present acceptable to
him would read as follows:
In connection with the Presidential statement of intent, the Senator said that he saw no other way of filling the vacuum until a North Atlantic agreement were firmed up, but stressed the point that the President, by such a statement, would necessarily be taking a risk which could only be minimized provided he used the Senate action as his virtual authorization and, in doing so, accepted the risk of House irritation.
On the subject of timing and procedure, the Senator said that he would not handle the matter as implied in recommendation No. 1 as a “Vandenberg Resolution” to be sponsored or introduced by him, but would put the resolution up to his Committee, which he felt would follow him on it, and, without any warning whatsoever, would hope to bring out of his Committee a resolution in the name of the Committee, put it on the calendar, and push for immediate action. In this fashion he felt that he would get the support of the Democratic Congressional leaders and avoid prolonged debate. He expected a challenge from Senator Wherry and the 21 revisionists, but thought it could be handled since the two leaders were already on record as supporting alterations in the UN charter, particularly with respect to veto. He felt that the reporting out from his Committee of a resolution rather than the introduction into the Committee or the introduction of a bill on the floor would be the signal on which we might act.
He expressed concern over the necessity for holding hearings because of the UN aspects of the matter and said that, once they started, every UN pressure group in the country would demand a hearing and it might last indefinitely. He was, therefore, going to consider such other methods of dealing with it in Committee as offered any promise of avoiding prolonged discussion. I explained that we had not perfected the mechanics of operation to the point where we had a given act in mind in indicating that the legislative and executive branches should proceed simultaneously. The Senator kept coming back to the statement “on the same day” and I told him that it was my impression that that was meant to indicate agreed timing rather than to be taken literally, the main purpose being to avoid, on the part of either body, any political maneuver to take a temporary advantage of this somewhat dramatic step. I pressed this point by saying that it was reasonably to be hoped that the Presidential advisers would urge him to sound off first, while I was confident that the Senator would have to withstand the same inner temptation. In these circumstances it seemed vital to us to have an undertaking in advance rather than to compete in a matter of such cardinal importance.
In the statements in the memorandum on page 2 of matters which the Presidential statement might include, he objected to paragraph 2 [Page 95] on the grounds that it again set the treaty of Rio as a pattern and that he could not agree to this for the reasons heretofore mentioned. He recommended that the language be amended to read as follows: “It should generally follow the basic lines of the treaty of Rio.” I told him that I felt that this was the intent as we certainly would not wish to incorporate into a North Atlantic pact all of the provisions of Rio.
The only serious difference of opinion with the Senator came up in connection with numbered paragraph 3. The Senator said he thought that was unwise because the language went further in the Middle East than it did in the North Atlantic with, as the Senator put it, less to back it up. The language he specifically objected to was, “The two countries would not countenance any attack on the political independence, etc.” He said that we had already made our intentions adequately clear, in his view, with respect to Greece and Turkey but not on Iran; that what we and the U.K. proposed to state was that we would underwrite those three countries when, as he recalled it, it was manifest that there was little or nothing we could do to help Iran because of her geographic position except through the input of supplies well in advance.
After much discussion, he agreed that we could not be put in the position of inviting aggression against these countries by ignoring them but he did not think the position in this working paper was proper and felt sure that it went beyond what the proposed Senate Resolution would cover. He recommended that we try to bring it back into the intent expressed in the Senate Resolution, if necessary by taking advantage of the Greek-Turkish discussions3 which he understood were progressing on the basis of some mutual aid or defense arrangements. I did not press this matter but agreed to have it reconsidered.
The time table agreed upon between us was that he would endeavor to perfect the Senate Resolution during the balance of this week and take such advance readings as he could of the possibility of prompt action. We, in the meanwhile, were to provide him by Tuesday night or Wednesday morning with the additional paragraphs needed in the Senate Resolution on UN which he had discussed with Dean Rusk. These paragraphs should include statements regarding (a) voluntary procedural changes in veto, etc., and (b) some treatment regarding Chapter VI which is better and more understandable than the position taken by the United States in the Interim Assembly hearings. It is his present feeling that all of Chapter VI should be covered by [Page 96] a veto waiver, as he found it impossible to see why we skipped three articles relating to the peaceful settlement of disputes. I was not able to answer the point but agreed to have the UN section of the Department explore the matter and proceed as rapidly as possible with Vandenberg’s staff. Messrs. Notter, Johnson and Sandifer have been notified of this by me.
- Presumably a revision of PPS 27/1 and NSC/9. This latest draft not identified in the Department files.↩
- Reference here is to the proposed Senate resolution considered by Lovett and Vandenberg on April 11. (See Lovett’s memorandum, paragraph 5, p. 83.) Following that conversation, the Office of United Nations Affairs (UNA) prepared a draft resolution for use by its Director, Dean Rusk, in his discussion of the subject with Vandenberg on April 16. That meeting (record not found in Department files), and the further discussion between Lovett and Vandenberg on the 18th, suggested refinements and additions for the continuing attention of the principal working-level drafters, Harley A. Notter of UNA and Francis O. Wilcox, Chief of Staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (memoranda by Sandifer of UNA to Lovett, April 19 and 22, 1948, not printed: 840.20/4–1948 and 840.20/4–2248).↩
- For documentation on United States economic and military aid to Greece and Turkey, see vol. iv, pp. 1 ff.↩