Editorial Note

The Third Session of the Permanent Committee of the World Congress of Partisans of Peace was held in Stockholm, March 15–19, 1950. (Regarding the attitude of the Department of State toward the Partisans of Peace movement, see the editorial note, page 273.) The meetings were extensively reported upon in telegrams from the Embassy in Stockholm (included in Department of State files 600.001 and 700.001), and a voluminous report on the session and its aftermath in Sweden was submitted to the Department in despatch 359, October 4, 1950, not printed (700.001/10–450). The session, which was [Page 277] attended by some 130 to 150 persons including many well-known Communists and Communist sympathizers from outside the Communist bloc of nations, was prepared and organized by the Swedish Communist Party and its nominally separate “Swedish Peace Front”. The meetings of the session, under the chairmanship of French atomic scientist Frederic Joliot-Curie, were largely given over to anti-American speeches. For a summary report on the initial impact within Sweden of the session, see telegram 381, March 22, from Stockholm, infra. Following the adjournment of the session, the Communist press published three resolutions attributed to the meetings but not known actually to have been discussed there. The principal resolution—the so-called “Stockholm Peace Appeal”—reads as follows:

“We demand the unconditional prohibition of the atomic weapon as a weapon of intimidation and mass extermination of people.

“We demand the establishment of strict international control over the implementation of this decision.

“We consider that the Government which first uses the atomic weapon against any other country will commit a crime against humanity and shall be regarded as a war criminal.

“We call upon all people of good will all over the world to sign this appeal.”

Two other resolutions were also announced. One dealt with an appeal for the convening of a new World Peace Congress and the other dealt With the award of “International Peace Prizes”.

The “Stockholm Peace Appeal” soon became the object of a worldwide Communist “Signatures for Peace” campaign. Regarding the assessment of and response to this “Signatures for Peace” campaign by the United States Government, see the second editorial note, page 315, and Special Information Guidance Paper No. 50 of July 27, page 320.