Foreign policy plank drafted by GOP body
By Jack Bell
Chicago, Illinois (AP) –
The Republican Platform Committee approved today a foreign policy plank retaining the pledge, criticized by Wendell Willkie and others, to enforce future world security by an international organization employing “peace forces.”
It rejected protests of Willkie and 15 Republican Governors that this language was not sufficiently plain.
The Platform Committee inserted a promise that the party would bend all efforts to bring home members of the Armed Forces “at the earliest possible time after the cessation of hostilities.”
Committee officials, releasing only a portion of the platform immediately, said it would be laid before the convention during the afternoon. They hoped to complete the draft during the day.
Provision approved
In another portion of the platform dealing with the maintenance of post-war Armed Forces, however, the committee approved a provision some members interpreted as a gesture toward those, like Willkie, who have been demanding that the United States join an international organization with military force to preserve peace.
The platform declared at this point for “the maintenance of post-war military force and establishments of ample strength, for the successful defense and the safety of the United States, its possessions and outposts, for the maintenance of the Monroe Doctrine, and for meeting any military commitments determined by Congress.”
The latter pledged to have Armed Forces available for any use approved by Congress suggested the possibility of a military allotment to an international organization to enforce peace, some said.
Fight is seen
A fight on the foreign plank might be carried to the floor by some of the governors who asked for more specific pledges.
As it was approved by the committee, the foreign plank pledges prosecution of the war to “total victory” and proposes to achieve peace aims “through international cooperation and not by joining a world state.”
It favored “responsible participation” by this country in a “cooperative organization among sovereign nations” to prevent aggression and said such an organization “should develop effective cooperative means to direct peace forces to prevent or repeal military aggression.”
Senator Warren Austin (R-VT), chairman of a foreign affairs subcommittee, predicted that the final draft would produce “complete harmony” in the Resolutions Committee.
Although Austin and other platform drafters called Willkie “mistaken” in his stand on the plank, there was evidence that backers of Dewey had no relish for any situation that might cost Willkie’s November support of the New York Governor, if the latter becomes the presidential nominee as expected.