The Pittsburgh Press (August 31, 1944)
Bridges attacks parley secrecy
Washington (UP) –
The closed nature of the Dumbarton Oaks world security conference drew new Republican fire today as Senatore Styles Bridges (R-NH) denounced the policy of “Oriental secrecy” and said he may discuss it next week with Governor Thomas E. Dewey, GOP presidential nominee.
In his second blast of the week against the confidential character of the American, British and Russian conversations, Mr. Bridges belittled the press conference held at Dumbarton Oaks Tuesday to report, in general terms, the progress made toward outlining a new world peace organization.
Styling it “a so-called press conference,” Senator Bridges said that reporters came away “shaking their heads despairingly,” and that “one reported voiced the true sentiment when he said they got ‘a diplomatic brushoff.’”
Another Republican, Rep. Edith Nourse Rogers (R-MA), a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said she would confer with Secretary of State Cordell Hull today on the progress of the conference because “I believe Congress should be better informed on our foreign relations.”