the No. 1 purpose which I visualize in this grouping of freedom-loving nations, is to try to create a body of countries who, by reducing the restrictions to trade between them, by mobilizing their economic, cultural, and moral resources take substantial steps toward setting up a peace of the world that looks good to the rest of the world. Now, as a part of that, of course the combined use of military strength to preserve that asset is an essential. I happen to believe that the Russians are perhaps the most realistic, the most objective, among the most patient, long-purposed people in the world, and that they will not misunderstand that; from their point of view, it is likely to be a No. 1 purpose, the grouping of these nations for military strength. Very well. If they read that into it, I say so much the better. As a nonmilitary man I would conclude that the usual military alliance, even that which comes about during the process of war, is certainly at the beginning a fairly inefficient type of operation. In the last war, after we were in the war and as we had gotten along progressively, the resources of the Allied Nations were pretty well merged so that they could be used in the most efficient fashion but certainly not in the earlier days. I conceive, therefore, that this grouping of freedom-loving nations would take out of the economy of each of them less of the substance of the people than any other approach. If now, under any other conceivable probable form of development that I can see, each of these nations tries to make itself as strong as its judgment of the necessities will dictate, then we have inevitably a dangerous drain on the living of the peoples represented. It is a very long, round-about, and wordy explanation, Mr. Vorys, but it will give you some idea of the confusion of mind in which I find myself. I am not an expert on the Charter. I have listened with great interest elsewhere and here to the niceties involved in the various clauses of the Charter with which I am generally familiar. I have tried to make it clear that I have some views as a citizen that seem fairly basic, and as to which I will look to the experts, both within the committee and without, to find the implementation. Mr. VORYS. Thank you. Mr. CHIPERFIELD. Mr. Richards? Mr. RICHARDS. No questions. Mr. CHIPERFIELD. Mr. Jonkman. Mr. JONKMAN. I have no questions. Mr. CHIPERFIELD. Mr. Judd? Mr. JUDD. Mr. Batt, I want to thank you, too, for the realistic way in which you have approached the problem, not insisting first on a particular solution but insisting we make every effort to find a solution; and instead of making excuses for not taking action, find means by which we can take action. You spoke of the way in which the Congress had influenced the developing of the ERP and other legislation, and at the same time you said you hesitated to make specific proposals in advance because you thought we could work those out better here, or a group of nations attacking the problem in earnest could work them out better. Is it not a fact that if this committee and the House had listened to the insistence of various groups in our country, who by floods of telegrams and letters were demanding, that we bring out ERP exactly in the prescribed form which they laid down, it would not have been a blessing; it would have been far less sound and advantageous than was the legislation that ultimately came out here, despite the theories of the side-line experts? Mr. BATT. Certainly, Mr. Judd. Mr. JUDD. Even though those groups were perfectly sincere and were sure their ideas were right. Therefore, your refusal to insist upon a specific solution does not mean you are less interested; you are convinced that probably a specific proposal insisted upon by you or any one group without the whole picture before them would probably not be as good as the solutions that are likely to be developed jointly by the nations if only they will get to work with determination to find solutions? Mr. BATT. I have been something of an amateur student of government, and certainly through 8 years of intimate working with it I have seen something of how it functions. I say to you, with all the sincerity of which I am capable, that I think the ERP legislation was one of the most constructive pieces of work that ever came out of this body. It came in considerable part as a result, I should think, of a tremendous amount of effort put in by the Members of the body. I have always believed that the visit of the 16 Members of this body to Europe, where they found, many of them for the first time in their lives, some of the facts of life in Europe. I felt that visit was of tremendous significance. But here is a place where people like me, the experts like Mr. Culbertson and others, can sweat out their points of view. You listen to it, and because you hear those points of view, and because you alone have access to secret information which we, the general public, have not, and because you alone, in spite of your independent position in the constitutional process have access to the executive power, you can, if you make up your minds you want to, come up with something. I am only begging that we do not give the impression, primarily, to Soviet Russia, that we are dilly-dallying, because their great strength lies in waiting us out until we get tired. As in election to Congress or election of a mayor or what not, you get a reform movement and they sweep the old gang out and put a fine fellow in. How many times does he last more than one term? Because the public who have supported him get tired and they go back to their ordinary places of business. The old fellows are doing business 24 hours a day and 7 days a week. Soviet Russia is doing business 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. I do not want to let them feel that the United States is going to use the United Nations as another debating ground on critical issues of this sort. Use it, yes; but not, at least today, depend solely on it. Mr. JUDD. Is it not true that they have their own resources, and those of at least their 11 satellite nations, already pooled and organized into one economic unit, which gives them a tremendous advantage over the nations in western Europe and America which are still largely going ahead separately? Mr. BATT. Without a doubt. They are providing a positive leadership. I hope to see the United States provide a positive leadership for the rest of the freedom-loving peoples of the world. I know something of the point of view which our State Department has always seemed to take, and which it took in the formation of the United Nations and that is that we are just one of all the nations in the world and must be careful about throwing our weight around. We do not want to be called imperialistic, and so forth and so on. I am aware of that. But the rest of the world is looking to the United States for leadership. Mr. JUDD. In your statement on page 10 you say [reading]: The ringing declarations of active purpose from the Congress on the reconstruction of Europe and Asia have already removed many of those doubts and given new hope to a troubled Europe hungry for our leadership. May I advise you there were members of this committee who tried to make the ringing declaration of active purpose in the ERP legislation a good deal stronger and more inclusive at that time; but we were blocked by the administration itself; and now it is coming along asking us to support it along the same general lines on which we tried to move at that time. Mr. BATT. The record will show, if I may suggest it, Mr. Judd, that I said to this committee when asked what I thought should be decided on the appropriation, that if you would let me write the general paragraphs of principle I would take my chances on the appropriation after that, because I would have so thoroughly committed the United States to the rest of the world which is ready to cooperate and develop its own resources, that the money would have had to follow. Mr. JUDD. And there is much less risk to the United States in an allout commitment than in a half-way commitment which would drain our resources and probably not succeed? Mr. BATT. Mr. Judd, I was born on a farm and raised in a small community where the only water we had was through a pump. I am familiar with what it means to "prime a pump." If you start out with too little water and dribble water along, you pump all the rest of your life. If you decide to prime the pump you have to put water in. If the United States is going to provide leadership it has to make it perfectly clear now that it intends to do it. Mr. JUDD. The way to put out the fire is to put on more, not less, water? Mr. BATT. Yes. Mr. JUDD. Mr. Batt, Mr. Fulton had to leave and he asked me to express his appreciation for your helpful statement and his regret that he was not able to express it in person. Mr. VORYS. Would the gentleman yield? Mr. JUDD. Certainly. Mr. VORYS. The gentleman has brought up the kind of practical problem in cooperation, not only international cooperation but cooperation between the branches of government with which this committee has been faced. The gentleman was too modest to suggest that he proposed a broad statement of principle and policy of a type that could be appropriately put as the preamble of the Foreign Assistance Act, a world-wide statement of principle, which the committee was anxious to incorporate, as you have said, Mr. Batt, in cooperation with the Executive. When we found it was impossible to secure that cooperation with the Executive by any consideration of that preamble, this committee, rather than precipitate a floor discussion of that, reluctantly omitted that part of the preamble. So when you bring us this matter of who has the initiative, it is of extreme importance in getting this whole matter started. Mr. JUDD. Up until the day the bill was passed we had not been able to get a reaction from the State Department, its views either for or against. Always the memoranda were delayed here or the replies were delayed there. They dragged their feet until we couldn't find out one way or the other what they believed or wanted. We could only guess they didn't want it then, 2 months ago. Now they do want it-perhaps too late. Mr. VORYS. Just to add one more little item of information: This committee had before it a bill with titles V and VI-title V providing for government in the occupied areas, and for an economic recovery program for Japan and Korea and the Ryukyus and title VI provided a limited form of furnishing arms to other nations when it was in our interests, and with further statements of limitations. We are anxious to secure legislative action on that this spring. Because it was impossible to secure the cooperation of the Executive in taking such action we reluctantly left that out of the legislation because we did not want to precipitate a floor fight on those questions. We now find that every one of those matters in which this committee was anxious to cooperate with the Executive, in presenting them to the House-every one of those are matters on which action should have been taken, but now we find that because it was not taken at the opportune time, it is increasingly difficult to secure action. Mr. BATT. May I make one further observation, gentlemen, as to procedure? These things, of course, do not operate in a vacuum. There is a machinery of approach to the views of other governments that must be employed. You cannot call a town meeting without knowing who is going to be there and what position they are going to take when they come. As a matter of practical relationships with other governments, when you try to do that sort of thing, you get yourselves into difficulties. I speak only of what I know from the newspapers as to the apparent unrest that has developed in the western European countries because of what seemed to them to be a unilateral approach to the U.S. S. R. in the last few days-through our diplomatic relations we ought to be finding out very quickly how far the European congress is going to be implemented by the respective government and what their attitude will be on the matter of further partnership with the United States. If they are ready to mobilize behind Mr. Churchill's statement we should be able to find that out without much trouble. We do not find those things out through the public press but through proper channels. We could set our relations for the future, to be sure we have partners going along with us. If I seem to deplore the formal approach through a resolution directed toward a remodeling of the United Nations Charter, it is because I think it is unwise to do that until you have found out what you can get out of the nations with whom you want to be most closely identified. Mr. CHIPERFIELD (presiding). Mr. Lodge. Mr. LODGE. Mr. Batt, I think we are very fortunate to have had the benefit of your opinion on this vast problem, and I share your preoccupation. I also agree wholeheartedly with Dr. Judd that we must rather find ways to accomplish things rather than think of reasons why we cannot. But I point out that the business of implementation of these ideas is an extremely difficult and complex one. I would like to ask you this: It seems to me from your statement that you would in general tend to agree with Mr. Clarence Streit and Mr. Justice Roberts. Mr. BATT. Except for one very important difference. I do not think either of them feels nearly so strongly as I do about not only the desirability but the necessity of keeping the United Nations as a going institution and making it stronger if you can. I do not use the expression which I know has been attributed to one or the other of them: The United Nations is a delusion and a snare and a fraud on the American people. Mr. LODGE. I see. In taking steps to accomplish what you recommend, we could operate under article 51; could we not? You suggest somewhere in your statement that it could be done within the terms of the United Nations Charter. Mr. BATT. I said, Mr. Lodge: if it can be done through an appropriate article of the Charter, so much the better. I listened to your questions of other witnesses. It is clear to me you are an expert on the clauses in the Charter, and I tried to provide against that at the outset by saying I was not. Mr. LODGE. You make a very interesting statement on page 5 where you say [reading]: The proposed union may be preceded by an initial union of the European democracies and by similar unions of democracies elsewhere located in proximity to one another. Mr. BATT. That is a quotation. Mr. LODGE. As Dr. Judd pointed out earlier this morning, we have the sort of a union that was organized at Rio and amended at Bogota. Then, we have the 16 nations participating in the European recovery program, and we have the western union which was begun at Brussels. I take it that you have those various beginnings of international organisms in mind when you make that statement. Mr. BATT. The Bogota meeting in my view is like a candle against the sun. The 16-nations grouping in Europe to me is the natural and logical development of something which I think is practicable now because the nations in it, by and large, are very much the same kind of people that we are. They have the same love for freedom we have. |