Office of the Historian

Policy Planning Staff Files1

The Chairman of the Joint Congressional Committee on Atomic Energy (McMahon) to President Truman 2

Washington, September 28, 1949.

Dear Mr President: I am writing you about what will probably be the immediate consequences of your announcement that Russia has achieved an atomic explosion.

We may anticipate another so-called “Peace Offensive” by the Soviet authorities. The effort this time will undoubtedly be larger in scope than anything attempted before. Mr. Vishinsky,3 in the United Nations Assembly, has already pointed the way.

The Russian “Peace Offensive” will center on two basic proposals, both of which may do incalculable damage to the cause of peace.

The first proposal will be for a general disarmament program. The nations discussed general disarmament continuously between 1922 and 1939. The Russians could easily procrastinate a program of this kind for a century.

The second proposal will be for a pact to pledge the non-use of atomic weapons, without, of course, Soviet adherence to the fundamental conditions of adequate inspection and control. We may be sure that both these proposals will deceive many well-meaning but misguided persons in this country.

I think it is imperative that we must not lose the initiative. The heart question of the peace is the acceptance of the American plan for atomic control, which is now the United Nations plan—endorsed by all the nations except Russia and her satellites.

I believe we should be ready to place before the world the essential soundness of the American position. I believe we should accept and not rebuff a Soviet proposal for peace—with this iron-clad condition: That as a pre-condition the Soviet government must recognize your right to place the American plan before the Russian people.

This is a simple test of Soviet good faith—a test which the common men and women of the world will understand. We may as well realize that peace talks will be barren if the Soviet spokesmen continue to [Page 180] bombard our people with propaganda while the Russian people are held in ignorance behind the Iron Curtain.

I believe events have shown that you know how to make yourself understood to ordinary folks when vital issues are at stake. I am also firmly convinced that you are not afraid of the unconventional or the unorthodox simply because it happens to be new. The conventional parleys of the past few years have yielded results as dry as dust.

I hope we may have an opportunity to discuss the matter at your convenience.

With my deepest esteem,

Respectfully yours,

Brien McMahon

United States Senator
  1. Lot 64D563, files of the Policy Planning Staff of the Department of State, 1947–1953.↩
  2. Senator McMahon addressed a separate letter to President Truman on September 28 urging expansion of the atomic energy production program; for text, see p. 543. President Truman replied to both communications in a single letter dated October 10; for text, see p. 505.↩
  3. Foreign Minister Vyshinsky was Chairman of the Soviet Delegation to the General Assembly.↩