Reading Eagle (August 23, 1944)
Hull, Dulles meet today
Bipartisan support of world security plan is at stake
Washington (AP) –
The possibility of bipartisan support for current efforts at post-war world security comes to a head today in an unprecedented meeting between Secretary of State Cordell Hull and John Foster Dulles, Governor Thomas E. Dewey’s foreign policy advisor.
Preliminary to his afternoon session with the Secretary (scheduled for 3:30 p.m. ET) Dulles sought the advice of two Republican members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Austin (R-VT) and Vandenberg (R-MI), in morning conferences.
Austin is known as a supporter of American peace organization efforts which culminated in the present Soviet-British-American talks here, and Vandenberg said yesterday that the talks had started under the “happiest possible prospects of good effect.”
The session today moved toward detailed analysis of Russian, American and British plans for organizing the world for peace. All three proposals were presented to yesterday’s meetings and officials familiar with them said they showed broad areas of agreement.
The main problems developed for future discussion were apparently the extent of authority to be proposed for small nations and the kind of commitments for the use of force if and when it is necessary to suppress aggression.
Dulles arrived late yesterday and at a press conference gave some broad indications of possible developments in his talks with Hull. He brought, he said, his own ideas and those of Governor Dewey, the Republican presidential nominee, on organizing world peace.
Expects Hull to report
Depending on how the meeting with Hull develops, he expected to present those ideas to the Secretary and he made it clear that if they were in conflict with the American plan, as already presented at Dumbarton Oaks, he might suggest some eleventh-hour alterations. However, he said he did not know what the plan is and could not say in advance whether changes would be suggested.
Asked whether he intended to remain here for the duration of the Dumbarton conversations he said he would “go very far to comply with any request made by Secretary Hull, subject to keeping in touch with Governor Dewey.
Whether he stays or not, he made it clear, he would expect that Hull would keep him and Dewey constantly informed of the progress of the Dumbarton talks because “I think it would be difficult to cooperate without definite information.”
Cooperation in the sense of Republican support for the peace organization plans worked out under the Democratic administration, Dulles said, does not mean complete removal of the subject from campaign discussion. He said it should not preclude “free public discussion” by political leaders in the months ahead.