Recovery Program, cooperation in establishing the Organization of American States, the proposal for a cooperative world program of technical assistance, and the joint action in protecting the security of the North Atlantic area. These actions are based on the assumption that each Member of the United Nations is obligated to observe in all of its relations with other countries the principles it pledged itself to support when it signed the Charter.

Security Arrangements: United States policy recognizes that the United Nations is not yet the perfected instrument of world security. The United Nations was founded on the premise of Great Power cooperation. Its structure is therefore such that, if any one Great Power is unwilling to cooperate, it can seriously impede efforts for peace within the organization. Soviet obstruction in the United Nations, with excessive use of the veto, and Soviet failure to live up to its obligations under the Charter have prompted Members which are active in support of the purposes and principles of the Charter to take steps to assure the freedom and independence of certain Members of the United Nations. The United States has taken part in some of these actions and has given support, both moral and material, to others. President Truman's message to Congress on March 17, 1948, referred specifically to the Brussels Pact:

66* * * This development deserves our full support. I am confident that the United States will, by appropriate means, extend to the free nations the support which the situation requires. I am sure that the determination of the free countries of Europe to protect themselves will be matched by an equal determination on our part to help them to do so."

This policy of support was given a broader context three months later when on June 11, 1948, the United States Senate, by an overwhelming vote, recommended:

"Progressive development of regional and other collective arrangements for individual and collective self-defense in accordance with the purposes, principles, and provisions of the Charter.

"Association of the United States, by constitutional process, with such regional and other collective arrangements as are based on continuous and effective self-help and mutual aid, and as affect its national security.

"Contributing to the maintenance of peace by making clear its determination to exercise the right of individual or collective self-defense under article 51 should any armed attack occur affecting its national security."

World Wars I and II demonstrate that the security of the United States is directly related to the security of Western Europe and that the nations on both sides of the North Atlantic are bound together by a natural community of interests. The Atlantic Pact is a formal acknowledgment of this relationship and reflects their conviction that an armed attack can be prevented only by making clear in advance their determination collectively to resist such an attack if it should Such a collective security arrangement is necessary, in the view of the United States, to protect the North Atlantic community and its own security.

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By enabling its members to confront a potential aggressor with preponderant power-military, economic, and spiritual-the Atlantic Pact will help to restore the confidence and sense of security which

are essential for full economic and political stability. Its political, psychological, and military values are each important and, in fact, inseparable. By reducing the chances of war, by increasing confidence and stability, and by providing the basis for effective collective defense should it be necessary, the Pact can aid materially in establishing in Western Europe the atmosphere necessary for economic recovery and bring closer the fuller life which is possible in a cooperative world society adjusted to the peaceful uses of modern scientific and technical advances.

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The ability of freedom-loving peoples to preserve their independ ence, in the face of totalitarian threats, depends upon their determination to do so. That determination, in turn, depends upon the development of healthy political and economic life and a genuine sense of security. A belief in this power of self-determination led the United States to embark upon a policy of assisting Greece and Turkey through the Greek and Turkish Aid Program, and later, the European countries through the European Recovery Program. The United States is now contemplating entry into the North Atlantic Pact as a means of giving effective support in the area of collective security to the purposes and principles of the United Nations as set forth in the Charter. If the American people approve this step, the government's objective will be the same as the one on which United States policies now converge, the restoration to international society of the conditions essential to the effective operation of the machinery of the United Nations and the progressive attainment of the objectives stated in the United States Charter. In the words of President Truman:

"We are moving on with other nations to build an even stronger structure of international order and justice. We shall have as our partners countries which, no longer solely concerned with the problem of national survival, are now working to improve the standards of living of all their people.

"Slowly but surely we are weaving a world fabric of international security and growing prosperity."

THE ATLANTIC PACT AND THE EUROPEAN RECOVERY PROGRAM

The North Atlantic Pact is a necessary complement to the broad economic coordination now proceeding under the European Recovery Program, but there is no formal connection between the Pact and the ERP since the latter includes countries which will not participate in the Pact.

In the view of the United States, the Pact and the ERP are both essential to the attainment of a peaceful, prosperous, and stable world. The economic recovery of Europe, the goal of the ERP, will be aided by the sense of increased security which the Pact will promote among these countries. On the other hand, a successful ERP is the essential foundation upon which the Pact, and the increased security to be expected from it, must rest.

THE ATLANTIC PACT AND MILITARY ASSISTANCE

A military assistance program is now being considered by the executive branch of the Government. This program, another measure

for securing peace for the United States and other peace-loving nations, envisages aid to the members of the Pact as well as other friendly states of the free world. As President Truman stated to the Congress in March 1947: "I believe that it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures. * * * Totalitarian regimes imposed upon free peoples, by direct or indirect aggression, undermine the foundations of international peace and hence the security of the United States." Since May 1947, military assistance has been provided to several countries under this policy.

While the North Atlantic Pact does not expressly commit the United States to furnish military assistance to the other Parties of the Pact, the decision to do so by the United States would be one way in which this nation could logically contribute to the mutual aid concept expressed in article 3 of the Pact. It is not intended, however, that one nation should carry on its shoulders the entire burden of maintenance of the security of the North Atlantic area. The United States is one of the contributors to this effort. The United States is fully aware that it does not have available unlimited supplies and that it is essential that its own armed forces be adequately equipped. Allocation of such military equipment as is available for transfer to other countries must be made in such a manner as will serve the over-all security interests of the United States.

In accordance with the principle of self-help and mutual aid, the other members of the Pact have already taken action to further the security of the North Atlantic area. Their efforts toward reestablishing sound economies are a vital provision of self-help in the security arrangements. The military budgets already carried by many of these countries, despite the tremendous load of economic recovery expenditures which they are undertaking, are an added expression of their intention of helping themselves and of not relying solely or even principally on United States assistance to maintain their own security and that of the North Atlantic area.

THE PACT AND EUROPEAN INTEGRATION

Economic and Political Cooperation: The North Atlantic Pact is made possible by the strides the Western nations of Europe have taken toward economic recovery and toward economic, political, and military cooperation. The core of the economic recovery effort is the European Recovery Program and the Organization for European Economic Cooperation (OEEC), composed of the 16 countries receiving American aid through the United States Economic Cooperation Administration (ECA). The 16 countries in the OEEC and represented on its Council are the United Kingdom, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland, and Turkey. Western Germany also participates fully in the OEEC. The Charter of the OEEC pledges the continuing effort of these countries to increase production, modernize industry, stabilize their finances, and balance their accounts with the outside world in order to make their full contribution to world economic security. Lines of action to increase cooperation through 1952 have been prepared. Support and aid to this integra

tion has also come from the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, of which the United States is a member.

The progress toward economic cooperation has been paralleled by moves toward a closer political integration of Western Europe. The outstanding instance is the Brussels Pact signed on March 17, 1948. The Brussels Treaty System, or "Western Union" as it is sometimes called, originated in a speech delivered by British Foreign Secretary Bevin in the House of Commons on January 22, 1948. Mr. Bevin stated that the concept of the unity of Europe was accepted by most people, but that the question was whether it should be achieved by the domination of one great power using police-state methods or by mutual cooperation and assistance. He believed the time ripe for a consolidation of Western Europe and proposed the linking by treaty of the United Kingdom, France, and the Benelux countries (Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg) as the "nucleus of a Western European unit" which would include other countries of free Europe.

Military Cooperation: The Brussels treaty provides that the five member countries shall give "all military and other aid and assistance in their power" to a contracting state that is the object of armed attack in Europe. The Consultative Council set up by the treaty established a Permanent Military Committee of high ranking military experts and also arranged for periodic meetings of the Ministers of Defense of the member countries. The Permanent Military Committee was given the task of planning an integrated defense organization and a common defense policy which would coordinate the military forces and resources of the five countries. Since July 1948, United States military representatives have been participating in a nonmember status in the work of the committee.

In September 1948 the five Ministers of Defense approved an integrated military command organization headed by Viscount Montgomery, as chairman of the Commanders in Chief of the Western European Ground Forces, British Air Marshal Sir James Robb as Commander in Chief of the Air Forces, and French Vice-Admiral Robert Jaujard as naval "Flag Officer" of the Committee. In October 1948 the Consultative Council approved the common defense policy, based on the Brussels treaty objectives and on the United Nations Charter. The Permanent Military Committee is currently coordinating the military resources of the five countries in a supply program which is expected to reveal what the Brussels Pact countries can do for themselves and each other in this respect and the extent to which they may find it necessary to supplement their supplies with military equipment from the United States.

THE ATLANTIC PACT AND UNITED STATES SECURITY

Discussions of the security functions of the North Atlantic Pact by United States representatives have emphasized the following considerations: The security of the United States would again be seriously endangered if the entire European continent were once more to come under the domination of a power or an association of powers antagonistic to the United States. Continental Europe was lost to the Allied Powers in World War II before the United States became. an active participant. It was regained at great risk and at an

enormous loss of lives and expenditure of material and money. Today, the weakened condition in which the nations of Europe find themselves as a result of the destruction and privation of war has afforded a golden opportunity for a new aggressor. It is clear in this case as it is clear, in retrospect, in the case of Nazi Germanythat dominance of the European continent, once attained and consolidated, could be the first step in a larger plan of attack on Great Britain and then on the United States and the rest of the Western Hemisphere. The problems created by this possibility of progressive and sustained aggression are legitimately the concern of United States security planning. The maintenance of the freedom and independence of the countries of Western Europe is of pre-eminent importance. It is believed essential to the security of the United States, therefore, that it consolidate the friendships and support which it now enjoys from free and friendly nations, and that thereafter it should seek through peaceful means to reduce the area within which any aggressor can effectively apply pressure.

The last two great wars have proved that a major conflict in Europe would inevitably involve the United States. The North Atlantic Pact, it was pointed out, is designed to give assurance that in the case of such a war there will be a coordinated defense in which the actual military strength and the military potential of all the members will be integrated into a common strategic plan. Article 4 provides that the Parties to the Pact shall consult when the territory, independence, or security of any of them is threatened; article 5 insures assistance to any Party subject to armed attack. The last war proved clearly that an aggressor nation can best achieve its results by picking off democratic countries one by one, dividing and splitting these countries through propaganda and other tactics so that they are incapable of coordinated defense. The essence of the North Atlantic Pact is that this is not to happen again with respect to the signatory countries.

These preventive and defensive actions have a vital significance for United States security, but they do not by any means overshadow the broad, constructive security actions which are enjoined by the Pact. The United States and its people believe that the most certain and effective security action open to any nation is a cooperative effort, through the United Nations and other avenues of negotiation, to eliminate war and the conditions which lead to war. This policy finds expression in article 2 of the North Atlantic Pact:

"The Parties will contribute toward the further development of peaceful and friendly international relations by strengthening their free institutions, by bringing about a better understanding of the principles upon which these institutions are founded, and by promoting conditions of stability and well-being. They will seek to eliminate conflict in their international economic policies and will encourage economic collaboration between any or all of them."