The Pittsburgh Press (March 1, 1945)
Roosevelt appeals to Congress and nation to back Yalta pact
Join in Europe’s task or face another war, President warns U.S.
By Lyle C. Wilson, United Press staff writer
Highlights of Roosevelt’s report on Big Three meeting
Germany
“The German people… must realize that the sooner they give up and surrender. by groups or as individuals, the sooner their present agony will be over.”
“Only with complete surrender can they begin to reestablish themselves as people whom the world might accept as decent neighbors.”
“There is not enough room on earth for both German militarism and Christian decency.”
Unconditional surrender of Germany does not mean the destruction or enslavement of the German people. It means temporary control by the Allies, the end of Nazism and the militaristic influence in the life of Germany, complete disarmament, punishment of war criminals and reparations for Germany’s victims.
“That objective… will remove a cancer from the German body which for generations has produced only misery and pain for the whole world.”
World organization
The compromise voting procedure agreed upon and to be announced shortly is “a fair solution of this complicated and difficult problem… founded in justice and will go far to assure… the maintenance of peace.”
“Whatever is adopted at San Francisco will doubtless have to be amended time and again over the years… [but] it can be a peace based on the sound and just principles of the Atlantic Charter – on the conception of the dignity of the human being…”
Liberated peoples
“The political and economic problems of any area liberated from Nazi conquest… are a joint responsibility of all three governments. They will join together… to help the people of any liberated area… solve their own problems through… democratic processes.”
“Under the agreements reached at Yalta, there will be a more stable political Europe than ever before.”
Poland
“The decision… was a compromise… the most hopeful agreement possible for a free, independent and prosperous Polish state. To secure European security and world peace, a strong and independent Poland 1s necessary.”France
France was not invited to Yalta because she is not a major military power sharing chief responsibility of the war. “No one should detract from the recognition there accorded her role in the future of Europe.” France has been invited to share in the control of Germany, to join in sponsoring the San Francisco conference, to be a permanent member of the five-power security council and to share responsibility over the liberated areas of Europe.Pacific
“Japanese militarism must be wiped out as thoroughly as German militarism.”
WASHINGTON – President Roosevelt explained the Crimea Conference to Congress and the people today in an appeal for our acceptance of responsibility for political conditions in Europe.
He said any other course would lead to another war.
Mr. Roosevelt addressed a joint session of Congress from the well of the House. It was his first personal appearance before Congress in more than two years.
Frankly acknowledging that some of the Crimea decisions were based on compromise, he said all decisions were unanimous.
“And more important even than the agreement of words,” he continued. “I may say we achieved a unity of thought and a way of getting along together.”
Mr. Roosevelt departed from his prepared text in defending the compromise Polish settlement by which Russia will get eastern Polish territory, and Poland will get German territory.
“I didn’t agree with all of it by any means,” the President said.
All yield
He explained that in some areas the agreement did not go so far as the British wanted; in some not so far as the Russians wanted, and in others not so far as he wanted. Under it, he said, most of East Prussia will go to Poland, with a small bit going to Russia. He added that he believed Danzig would be “a lot better off” as part of Poland.
His address was both an explanation of his conference with Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Marshal Joseph V. Stalin, and an appeal for Senate ratification of the international security organization to be set up by the San Francisco conference next month.
He said the objective in handling Germany is simple – “to secure the peace of the future world” – but that experience had shown this would be an impossible objective “if Germany is allowed to retain any ability to wage aggressive war.”
Can’t blame one nation
In speaking of the political problems inherent in the liberation of nations occupied by the Nazis, the President said there had been instances which were “incompatible with the basic principles of international collaboration” and that it was “fruitless” to try to place the blame on one nation.
The Crimea meeting produced a unanimous settlement in which the three nations agreed “that the political and economic problems of any area liberated from the Nazi conquest, or of any former Axis satellite. are a joint responsibility of all three governments.”
To aid freed countries
Great Britain, Russia and the United States “will join together during the temporary period of instability after hostilities, to help the people of any liberated area, or of any former satellite state, to solve their own problems through firmly established democratic processes,” he said.
Must sacrifice for peace
The President said:
Responsibility for political conditions thousands of miles overseas can no longer be avoided by this great nation.
It is a smaller world. The United States now exerts a vast influence in the cause of peace throughout all the world. It will continue to exert that influence, only if it is willing to continue to share the responsibility for keeping the peace.
Peace can endure only so long as humanity really insists on it, and is willing to work for it – and sacrifice for it.
The President’s appeal came just 30 hours after his return from a 14,000-mile Journey to Yalta.
Legislators were eager to see and hear him, partly because still and movie shots of the Black Sea meeting had seemed to depict Mr. Roosevelt as a more tired and older man than most here would rate him.
The voyage home aboard a heavy cruiser evidently had given the President the sun and rest that he needed.
Nonpartisan question
He pleaded that peace, like war, is a non-partisan responsibility of all of us. And he told the Congress that he had kept in mind that our Constitution would require Senate ratification not only of the forthcoming San Francisco agreement but of some decisions taken in the Crimea as well.
He said the American delegation to San Francisco “is, in every sense of the word, bipartisan.”
“World peace is not a party question any more than military victory,” he said.
Mr. Roosevelt pleaded for acceptance of compromise in the achievement of peace and a realization that perfection is unattainable – that we must simply do the best we can.
Discusses Poland
Of Crimea decisions and San Francisco objectives, there was little new in his report to the nation. He dealt in turn with Poland and France, emphasizing inquiry of Poland’s proposed new boundaries, while acknowledging that compromise had been necessary in finding agreement at all.
The President said the Crimea conference had accomplished desired objectives:
-
A desirable compromise settlement of the Polish problem.
-
Agreement on close political coordination among the Allied armies fighting on three European fronts.
-
Agreement on voting methods in the proposed international security organization.
-
Agreement on post-war occupation and control of Germany.
-
Agreement on substitution of overall cooperative action now and after the war to avoid “balance of power” and “spheres of influence” politics in Europe.
-
Agreement on methods by which liberated countries shall be restored to economic security and political freedom.
‘Hitler has failed’
On these questions, he said the Nazis had hoped the Allies would divide and so weaken themselves that the doomed leaders of Germany could escape their fate.
“But,” he added, “Hitler has failed.”
For the Axis, he promised fire and the sword. But to the German people, he promised that unconditional surrender would not mean for them destruction and enslavement.
The President explained:
The decision, with respect to the boundaries of Poland, was a compromise, under which the Poles will receive compensation in territory in the north and west in exchange for what they lose by the Curzon Line.
The limits of the western border will be permanently fixed in the final peace conference. the final peace conference. It was agreed that a large (Baltic) coastline should be included.
It is well known that the people east of the Curzon Line are predominantly White Russian and Ukrainian; and that the people west of the line are predominantly Polish. As far back as 1919, the representatives of the Allies agreed that the Curzon Line represented a fair boundary between the two peoples.
I am convinced that the agreement on Poland, under the circumstances, is the most hopeful agreement possible for a free, independent and prosperous Polish State.
Silent on De Gaulle
He said Poland had been the corridor through which Russia was attacked – twice within our recent memory.
Mr. Roosevelt called the roll of responsibilities and recognition accorded France at the Crimea meeting and said no word that would reveal his resentment at Gen. Charles de Gaulle’s abrupt refusal to come to a French city in North Africa to talk with him.
To avoid misunderstandings and future dislocations of peace and political plans, the President reminded that arrangements had been made for frequent meetings of the Foreign Ministers of the three great powers.
Lag in meetings blamed
Too long a time between the two Churchill-Stalin-Roosevelt conferences had been responsible, he said, for the difficult situations which developed in Poland, Yugoslavia and Greece.
Mr. Roosevelt emphasized that “quite naturally” the Crimean Conference did not deal with the Pacific War but that the combined British and American Staffs at Malta “made their pians to increase the attack against Japan.”
In this connection, he said, the “unconditional surrender of Japan is as essential as the defeat of Germany if our plans for world peace are to succeed.”
He said:
The defeat of Germany will not mean the end of the war against Japan. On the contrary, America must be prepared for a long and costly struggle in the Pacific.
Voting plan withheld
He said it was not yet possible to announce the procedure of voting in the United Nations Security Council, but that Britain and Russia had unanimously adopted a proposal made at Yalta by the American delegation.
It will be possible to disclose this plan “in a very short time.” The President said he believed Congress would find it “a fair solution of this complicated and difficult problem.”
Looking to the San Francisco meeting as a keystone of future world peace, Mr. Roosevelt said, “this time we shall not make the mistake of waiting until the end of the war to set up the machinery of peace. This time, as we fight, together to get the war over quickly, we must work together to keep it from happening again.”
To inform Congress
He was “well aware of the constitutional fact” that the charter developed at San Francisco, as well as “some of the other arrangements made at Yalta,” will require Senate ratification. He assured the House and Senate that they would be kept constantly informed of this government’s program and reminded them that the Congressional delegates to the San Francisco Conference included equal Republican and Democratic representation.
He said:
World peace is not a party question any more than is military victory. The structure of world peace cannot be the work of one man. or one party, or one nati0n. It cannot be a peace of large nations or of small nations. It must be a peace which rests on the cooperative effort of the whole world.
Unity stressed
The President repeatedly spotlighted the present unity between “the major allies,” saying they never had been more closely united “not only in their war aims but in their peace aims.”
He said one of the accomplishments at Yalta was closer tactical liaison between Russian, U.S. and British forces fighting in Europe.
He gave the first details of this new close cooperation, saying provision was made for daily exchange of information between the Allied forces on the Western Front, the armies in Italy and the Soviet armies on the Eastern Front “without the necessity of going through the Chiefs of Staffs in Washington and London as in the past.”
Distribution perfected
He said arrangements also had been made for most effective distribution of all available material and transportation to places “where they can best be used in the combined war effort – American, British and Russian.”
He elaborated at length on the meaning of unconditional surrender of Germany. The German people, must realize the necessity of accepting it as the primary requisite of their reestablishment as a people “whom the world might accept as decent neighbors.”
He said this did not mean the destruction or enslavement of the German people, but it did mean “temporary control of Germany” by Britain, Russia, France and the United States.
Nazism doomed
It also means the ending of Nazism, the Nazi Party, and all militaristic influence; it means punishment for war criminals, Germany’s complete disarmament and the permanent dismemberment of the German General Staff “which has so often shattered the peace of the world.”
By compelling reparations in kind – in plants, in machinery and rolling stock and war materials – we shall avoid the mistake made alter the last war of demanding reparations in the form of money which Germany could never pay.
They will endeavor to see to it that interim governing authorities are as representative as possible of all democratic elements in the population. and that free elections are held as soon as possible.
Compromises likely
He went on to explain that “final decisions” in the liberated areas are going to be made jointly and therefore will often be “a result of give-and-take compromise.”
The President said:
The United States will not always have its way 100 percent – nor will Russia or Great Britain… but I am sure that under the agreements reached at Yalta there will be a more stable political Europe than ever before.
Once there has been a free expression of the peoples’ will in any country our immediate responsibility ends – with the exception only of such action as may be agreed upon in the international security organization.
Poland called example
Mr. Roosevelt described the Polish solution as “one outstanding example” of joint action by the three major Alles toward the objective of helping to create “a strong, independent and prosperous nation, with a government ultimately to be selected by the Polish people themselves.”
He said to achieve this:
It was necessary to provide for the formation of a new Polish government much more representative than had been possible while Poland was enslaved. However, the new Polish Provisional Government of National Unity will be pledged to holding a free election as soon as possible on the basis of universal suffrage and a secret ballot.
Winding up his review of the conference, the President said he thought it spelled the end “of the system of unilateral action and exclusive alliances and spheres of influence and balances of power and all the other expedients which have been tried for centuries – and have failed.”
Roosevelt invites Frisco delegates
WASHINGTON (UP) – President Roosevelt has sent formal invitations to his eight choices as members of the United States delegation to the United Nations Conference at San Francisco.
One of the proposed delegates, Sen. Arthur H. Vandenberg (R-Michigan), has refused to say whether he would serve as a delegate on grounds he had not been invited. Other choices have indicated their willingness to serve.
Other delegates are to be Secretary of State Edward R. Stettinius, former Secretary of State Cordell Hull, Chairman Tom Connally (D-Texas) of the Senate Foreign Relations committee, Chairman Sol Bloom (D.-New York) of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Rep. Charles A. Eaton (R-New Jersey), a member of Mr. Bloom’s committee; Cmdr. Harold E, Stassen, former Governor of Minnesota, and Dean Virginia Gildersleeve of Barnard College.