DEPARTMENT OF STATE Memorandum of Conversation
Date: February 4, 1949
Subject: The Atlantic Pact
Participants: Secretary of State Acheson Cong. Sol Bloom Charles E. Bohlen Cong. John Kee Cong. Helen Gahagan Douglas Cong. Charles A. Eaton Cong. John M. Vorys
Copies to: S - The Secretary U - Mr. Webb G - Mr. Rusk L - Mr. Gross EUR - Mr. Hickerson
At the request of Mr. Bloom, I received the Subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee this morning consisting of the following representatives: Mr. Bloom, Judge Kee, Mrs. Douglas, Dr. Eaton and Mr. Vorys.
The purpose of the visit was to express the desire of the Foreign Affairs Committee that the North Atlantic Pact be presented to the Congress as a joint resolution and not as a treaty. In support of this contention, the following arguments were introduced:
1. The pact was a multilateral convention and not a bilateral treaty and as such should be considered, as UNRRA had been considered, as a joint resolution by the Congress.
2. Since the obligation to assist other countries might involve the United States in hostilities it touched directly upon the war-making powers of Congress which under the Constitution brought the House directly in.
3. Since the pact would require implementing legislation and appropriations for the supply of arms, the House should be given an opportunity to consider the obligation from which such legislation and appropriations would stem.
I pointed out that although lawyers could find reasons to permit the North Atlantic Pact to go to Congress as a joint resolution, nevertheless, the Constitution did provide in the case of treaties for Senate action alone; that in this case, in view of the solemn obligation involved and the general concept of a treaty, the North Atlantic Pact would be a treaty in the truest sense of the word; and that, furthermore, after due consideration, the President had announced in his inaugural address that he would submit the pact as a treaty to the Senate. I said I could see the merit of the arguments advanced by the members of the Subcommittee, but that, in regard to the war-making power, there had been in the past many treaties which had, in effect, involved legislation which was only within the power of the House to initiate and I mentioned in this connection a treaty, for example, to eliminate double taxation.
On the third point it was pointed out to the Subcommittee that any arms supply program which might in the future be presented to Congress did not stem directly from any obligation in the Atlantic Pact and we have been very careful in discussions with representatives of other countries to make it quite clear that membership in this pact did not in any way obligate the United States to any specific program or any specific commitment to supply arms to the participating countries.
MR. BOHLEN emphasized this point by recalling that last year when there was no pact under discussion the House Foreign Affairs Committee itself had been inclined to authorize some form of military supply program under Title VI of the so-called Omnibus Bill.
Members of the Committee, however, felt that whether formally separated the arms supply program would be regarded in Congress as having a relationship with the conclusion of the pact.
The Subcommittee, although obviously still of the opinion that the House should be given an opportunity to give primary consideration, together with the Senate, to the pact, recognized that in present circumstances it would be presented as a treaty.
Dean Acheson
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