Willkie condemns peace-policy plan
Republican draft on foreign relations could be used to balk cooperation, he says
A few hours after Wendell Willkie had received the text of the proposed Republican foreign policy plank, the 1940 presidential candidate issued a statement denouncing the plan as ambiguous, subject to opposing interpretations and capable of being used to throttle effective collaboration by the United States with other countries to maintain peace.
Mr. Willkie’s views on the Platform Committee’s suggestions were presented to reporters who had been invited to visit his officers at 15 Broad Street. He explained that he chose this form of making them public because he was not a delegate to the convention.
Likening the language proposed for this year’s platform to that employed in 1920, Mr. Willkie recalled that 31 leading Republicans had assured the country that the 1920 formula “was the surest road to an effective international organization,” but that President Harding, immediately after the election, “announced that the League of Nations was dead.”
He continued:
A Republican President elected under the proposed platform of 1944 could, with equal integrity, announce that the United States would not enter any world organization in which the nations agreed jointly to use their “sovereign” power for the suppression of aggression.
The net result would be no international organization. No effective international force for the suppression of aggression. No peaceful world. Another world war fought in vain. And the youth of America once more betrayed.
As a Republican, I am desperately anxious for my party to pursue a course that will entitle it to win the November elections. As I am not a delegate to the convention, I take this method of presenting my views on the proposed foreign relations plank of the platform, which I understand will be presented to the convention tomorrow [Tuesday]. I have not, as yet, had the privilege of seeing the other proposed planks.
He also made it clear that his criticism was not directed against Senator Warren R. Austin (R-VT), chairman of the subcommittee which drafted the foreign policy recommendation. Describing the Senator as an “able, forthright statesman,” Mr. Willkie said that he hoped his own statement would assist the senator in obtaining “a better resolution.”
Mr. Willkie’s statement on the proposed foreign relations plank was as follows:
The Platform Committee presently proposes to submit to the convention on Tuesday a foreign relations plank, which pledges in part as follows:
We shall seek to achieve such aims [aims to keep America secure, to keep the Axis powers impotent to renew tyranny and attack, and to attain peace and freedom based on justice and security] through organized international cooperation and not by joining a world state.
We favor responsible participation by the United States in post-war cooperative organization among sovereign nations to prevent military aggression and to attain permanent peace with organized justice in a free world.
Such organization should develop effective cooperative means to direct peace forces to prevent or repel military aggression. Pending this, we pledge continuing collaboration with the principal United Nations to assure these ultimate objectives.
It [such organized cooperation] should promote a world opinion to influence the nations to right conduct, develop international law and maintain an international tribunal to deal with justiciable disputes.
Pursuant to the Constitution of the United States, any treaty made on behalf of the United States with any other nation or any association of nations, shall be made only by and with the advice and consent of the Senate of the United States, provided two-thirds of the Senators present concur.
In 1920, the Republican Convention adopted a foreign relations plank which provided as follows:
The Republican Party stands for agreement among the nations to preserve the peace of the world. We believe that such an international association must be based upon international justice, and must provide methods which shall maintain the rule of public right by the development of law and the decision of impartial courts, and which shall secure instant and general international conference whenever peace shall be threatened by political action, so that the nations pledged to do and insist upon what is just and fair may exercise their influence and power for the prevention of war.
Thirty-one leading Republicans, interpreting this language, assured the American electorate that a Republican victory was the surest road to an effective world organization.
The Republicans won the election of 1920. A Republican President, claiming that he in no way repudiated the party’s platform, immediately after the election announced that the League of Nations was dead.
A Republican President elected under the proposed platform of 1944 could, with equal integrity, announce that the United States would not enter any world organization in which the nations agreed jointly to use their “sovereign” power for the suppression of aggression.
And every effective world organization proposed could be rejected as a “world state.” And all proposed joint forces for the suppression of aggression could be called armed forces and not “peace forces.” And each proposed step taken by any world organization in which we might participate could be called a treaty and, as such, would be subject to ratification by two-thirds of the United States Senators.
The net result would be no international organization. No effective international force for the suppression of aggression. No peaceful world. Another world war fought in vain. And the youth of America once more betrayed.
It may well be maintained that the language of the resolution means otherwise. And so it might. And so might the language of the plank of 1920 have meant something different from the interpretation given it by the victorious candidate.
But we cannot afford in 1944 to be ambiguous. Sequences, as we may have seen, can be too grave. There must be no playing with phony phrases such as “world state,” or use of gentle language such as “peace forces,” or repeated emphasis on “sovereign” nations with nationalistic implications. There must be no self-defeating requirements about submitting each and every individual step in international cooperation to the advice and consent of two-thirds of the United States Senators.
We know from bitter experience that the United States cannot survive militarily, politically or economically in the modern world without close and continuing cooperation with other peace-loving nations. On the necessity for such cooperation, we should speak in words forthright, clear and strong.
We should demand the immediate creation of a Council of the United Nations as a first step toward the formation of a general international organization in order that all the peoples of the United Nations should have a voice in the decision which will shape the world in which they live. These decisions should not and must not be made by three or four great powers alone.
We should advocate the use of American sovereignty in cooperation with other powers to create a continuing international organization for the good of all, with the power to uphold its decisions by force if necessary. For our sovereignty is something to be used, not hoarded. Each nation should maintain land, sea and air forces to be used collaboratively, in agreed situations and within agreed limits, to prevent aggression.
International disputes, which are clearly covered by international law, should be submitted to courts and judges, and those which are not should be settled by conciliation and compromise.
For such a procedure to work successfully, the members of the international organization must say plainly, in advance, that if peaceful methods fail, the aggressor state will encounter sufficient armed forces to ensure his defeat.
In an international organization which was backed by the machinery needed to enforce its decisions, the United States, for the first time in history, would be in a position to deal boldly and effectively with the problems which will confront it. In cooperation with our allies, we shall still be leaders by virtue of the strength and ingenuity of our people. To use this leadership, for our own enrichment and that of mankind, will not be to weaken the sovereign power of the American people; it will be to widen it and make it more real.
Willkie’s friends ‘surprised’
Chicago, Illinois – (June 26)
Wendell Willkie’s statement, calling the foreign affairs plank “ambiguous” and ineffectual, caught supporters of the 1940 candidate off guard tonight. They said they were “completely astonished” by the statement of their principal.
The group, which is here, includes John Haynes (former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury), John Cowles and Gardner Cowles Jr. (publishers who have been warm supporters of Mr. Willkie), Ralph Oake (Mr. Willkie’s campaign manager before he withdrew from the race), Fred Baker of Seattle, and former Senator Sinclair Weeks of Massachusetts. They said they would issue a statement of their own, endorsing the party’s plank. Their reaction was taken to indicate a definite break with Mr. Willkie.
Word of Mr. Willkie’s statement came while the group was discussing ways and means for effecting a reconciliation between Mr. Willkie and Governor Dewey which would make it possible for Mr. Willkie to take the stump for the party.
Austin defends the plank
Senator Warren R. Austin (R-VT), chairman of the Platform Subcommittee on Foreign Affairs, said of the plank:
It is not ambiguous.
It definitely stands for the employment or direction of military or economic reactions to prevent or repel military aggression. It offers hope that military force may not be necessary ultimately to prevent war and that through the processes of a general international organization, we may attain security and peace on the basis of self-discipline of nations.
Our policy, stated in the plank, is against a superstate. It is for a new principle of international cooperation implemented by an organization to put it into effect for the security and peace of the world. It is for development of international law and establishment of a world court.
There is no ambiguity about the use of the words “sovereign nations.”
It intends that sovereignty shall be used internationally to keep the peace.
Mr. Willkie is mistaken in saying that if the policy were carried out, it would result in no international organization. It expressly supports such an organization. It does not support an international integrated army. Its military resources are vested in a council with power to direct them in the right regions to the right places on the right occasions.
Senator Joseph Ball (R-MN) said of the statement on foreign policy:
On the whole, it is a strong commitment by the party to a strong and effective international organization to stop future wars.
Disagreement with Mr. Willkie was voiced by Senators White of Maine and Burton of Ohio. The latter said:
I think we can stand on this platform and the candidate can elaborate it to the satisfaction of the nation in the campaign.
Edge upholds the draft
Governor Edge of New Jersey, commenting upon the Willkie statement, said he approved the plank and had confidence in Governor Dewey’s interpretation of the statement.
He said he was not concerned with any interpretation that Governor Dewey would repudiate any obligation to use force if necessary to maintain peace.
Governor Edge added:
I am especially confident in view of Governor Dewey’s speech last April before the newspaper publishers of the nation when he gave this pledge, “To carry on the war to total and crushing victory, and in so doing, to drive home to the aggressor nations a lesson that will never be forgotten.”
Chicago, Illinois (AP) – (June 26)
Senator Taft (R-OH), chairman of the Republican Resolutions Committee, challenged tonight “any adherents” of Wendell Willkie to press before the committee his protest against the foreign policy plank.
He added:
I’d be very much surprised if the plank adopted by the Democratic Platform Committee suits Mr. Willkie any better than that of the Republicans.
Chicago, Illinois (AP) – (June 26)
Senator Vandenberg (R-MI), defending the proposed foreign policy plank against criticism by Wendell Willkie, said tonight that he hoped it was “too late” for anyone to break down efforts made to unite Republicans “upon a program to preserve America and exert our national power for organized peace with justice in a free world.”