4. Naval blockade of the coasts or ports of another state; 5. Aid to armed bands formed on the territory of a state and invading the territory of another state, or refusal, despite demands on the part of the state subjected to attack to take all possible measures on its own territory to deprive the said bands of any aid and protection.

Whatever Russia's motives may have been during this. period of her weakness, no one will deny that her declarations of principle were of the highest. Indeed, she went beyond the rest of the world in her lofty profession of idealism. Even after her alliance with Hitler she professed the same high principles while threatening her neighbor nations with military occupation.

Mr. President, On October 6, 1939, Pravda carried the following communique from the Soviet Government interpreting the signing of the pact forced on Latvia:

At the basis of the pacts of mutual assistance are irremovable principles of the treaties of peace and nonaggression. The contracting parties affirm once more their unshaken faith to recognize the sovereign rights of each state as well as their firm desire not to interfere with the inner affairs of another country.

On October 31, 1939, in his speech before the Soviet Supreme Council, Mr. Molotov said:

The pacts with the Baltic states in no way imply the intrusion of the Soviet Union in the internal affairs of Estonia, Latvia, or Lithuania, as some foreign interests are trying to make believe. *** These pacts are inspired by the mutual respect for the governmental, social, and economic systems of each of the contracting parties. * ** We stand for and exact an honest fulfillment of agreements signed by us on a basis of reciprocity and declare that foolish talks of sovietization of the Baltics is useful only to our common enemies. (Pravda, November 1, 1939.)

On September 24, 1941, Ivan Maisky, in accepting the Atlantic Charter for the Soviet Government, made the solemn declaration that

the Soviet Union has applied, and will apply, in its foreign policy the high principle of respect for the sovereign rights of peoples. The Soviet Union was, and is, guided in its foreign policy by the principle of self-determination of nations. * * Accordingly the Soviet Union defends the rights of every nation to the independence and territorial integrity of its country, and its right to establish such a social order and to choose such a form of government as it deems opportune and necessary for the better promotion of its economic and cultural prosperity.

On November 6, 1941, Stalin said:

We have not nor can we have such war aims as the seizure of foreign territories or the conquest of other peoples, irrespective of whether European peoples and territories or Asiatic peoples and territories including Iran, are concerned.

We have not nor can we have such war aims as the imposition of our will and our regime on the Slavic and other enslaved peoples of Europe who are awaiting our help. Our aim is to help these peoples in their struggle for liberation from Hitler's tyranny, and then to accord them the possibility of arranging their lives on their own land as they think fit, with absolute freedom. No interference of any kind with the domestic affairs of other nations.

As recently as November 6, 1942, Stalin declared:

The program of action of the Anglo-Soviet-American coalition is: "Abolition of racial exclusiveness, equality of nations, and integrity of their territories, liberation of enslaved nations and restoration of their sovereign rights, the right of every nation to arrange its affairs as it wishes, economic aid to nations that have suffered and assistance to them in attaining their material welfare, restoration of democratic liberties."

Mr. President, I desire to review briefly the history of the Atlantic Charter. To make the record complete, we

ought to recall the history of the Atlantic Charter, a history which, according to the New York Times, gives it a standing in international law as valid as any in existence. The record shows that the first lines of the White House press release of August 14, 1941, as reprinted in the Department of State Bulletin of August 16, 1941, read:

The following statement was signed by the President of the United States and the Prime Minister of Great Britain.

On August 21, 1941, the President submitted to Congress a document purporting to be the text of the Atlantic Charter, bearing what appeared to be President Roosevelt's signature along with Mr. Churchill's.

On September 24, 1941, Ivan Maisky, Soviet Ambassador to Great Britain, pledged the Soviet Government to its principles.

On January 1, 1942, in Washington, 26 United Nations in a joint declaration of purposes subscribed to

A common program of purposes and principles embodied in the joint declaration of the President of the United States of America and the Prime Minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, dated August 14, 1941, known as the Atlantic Charter.

On January 4, 1942, our Department of State issued for the following solemn statement:

In order that liberty-loving peoples, silenced by military force, may have an opportunity to support the principles of the declaration by United Nations, the Government of the United States, as the depository for that declaration, will receive statements of adherence to its principles from appropriate authorities which are not governments.

On January 29, 1942, a treaty of alliance between the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union and Iran was signed having in view

The principles of the Atlantic Charter jointly agreed upon and announced to the world by the President of the United States of America and the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom on the 14th August 1941, and endorsed by the Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on the 24th September 1941.

On May 26, 1942, a treaty of mutual assistance between Great Britain and the Soviet Union was signed

On a basis of the principles enunciated in the declaration made August 14, 1941, by the President of the United States and the Prime Minister of Great Britain, to which the Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics has adhered.

On June 11, 1942, an agreement between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on the principles applying to mutual aid in the prosecution of the war against aggression was signed containing the following solemn preamble:

And whereas the Governments of the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, as signatories to the Declaration of the United Nations of January 1, 1942, have subscribed to a common program of purposes and principles embodied in the joint declaration known as the Atlantic Charter, made on August 14, 1941, by the President of the United States of America and the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the basic principles of which were adhered to by the Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on September 24, 1941.

The same principles were reaffirmed as the basis of the Moscow Conference on November 1, 1943, which includes the following pledge that these Governments are "united in their determination, in acccordance with the declaration by the United Nations of January 1, 1942."

On December 1, 1943, the declaration regarding Iran was concluded with the following solemn promise:

First, their countries seek no aggrandizement, territorial or other;

Second, they desire to see no territorial changes that do not accord with the freely expressed wishes of the peoples concerned;

Third, they respect the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they will live; and they wish to see sovereign rights and self-government restored to those who have been forcibly deprived of them;

Fourth, they will endeavor, with due respect for their existing obligations, to further the enjoyment by all states, great or small, victor or vanquished, of access, on equal terms, to the trade and to the raw materials of the world which are needed for their economic prosperity;

Fifth, they desire to bring about the fullest collaboration between all nations in the economic field with the object of securing, for all, improved labor standards, economic advancement, and social security.

Sixth, after the final destruction of the Nazi tyranny, they hope to see established a peace which will afford to all nations the means of dwelling in safety within their own boundaries, and which will afford assurance that all the men in all the lands may live out their lives in freedom from fear and want;

Seventh, such a peace should enable all men to traverse the high seas and oceans without hindrance;

Eighth, they believe that all of the nations of the world, for realistic as well as spiritual reasons, must come to the abandonment of the use of force. *** Since no future peace can be maintained if land, sea, or air armaments continue to be employed by nations which threaten or may threaten, aggression outside of their frontiers, they believe, pending the establishment of a wider and permanent system of general security, that the disarmament of such nations is essential. They will likewise aid and encourage all other practicable measures which will lighten for peace-loving peoples the crushing burden of armaments.

The following nations are signatories to the Atlantic Charter: United States of America, Great Britain, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, Bolivia, Brazil, Australia, China, Columbia, Canada, Costa Rica, Cuba, Czecho-slovakia, Belgium, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Greece, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Iran, India, Luxemburg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaraugua, Norway, Panama, Poland, South Africa, Yugoslavia, Iraq, Liberia, Mexico, the Philippines, France.

Mr. President, such, then, is the record of the principles and purposes of Russia, Great Britain, and the United States, which they have proclaimed to the world during two decades, as the indispensable minimum upon which a just, honorable, and lasting peace can be built. And these are the principles: disarmament, abolition of conscription, nonaggression pacts, clear-cut definitions of aggression, the principle of nonintervention in internal or external affairs of another state, the equal sovereignty of all nations large and small, the inviolability of human freedom and personality, proscription of the use of force between nations as a means of settling disputes, an international organization based on consent, guaranties of equal access to raw materials and markets for victor and vanquished, all of which these three great powers have everally and collectively declared to be essential to the

establishment of a lasting peace among the nations of the world.

Mr. President, unhappily, this is not the whole record. One by one, these three great powers have repudiated these principles with what has amounted to a rising stream of exceptions, reservations, and reversals of policy until today, after many long months of preparation, discussion, and deliberation, they have turned up before the world with the Dumbarton Oaks proposal.

Mr. President, keeping in mind the foregoing record of solemn declarations of principle, observe how the Dumbarton Oaks proposals, both in spirit and in letter as they now stand, emasculate the good-neighbor policy, override the principle of sovereign equality of all nations, offer in place of a genuinely international society of nations, a grim military alliance, destroy the very concept of neutrality, approve as a cardinal principle the use of brute force and the threat of coercion, without requiring that the security council shall first resort to peaceful methods in dealing with the threat of aggression, deliberately divorce the structure of the proposed security organization from the nature of the peace which it is expected to enforce, and cleverly disguise the deliberate omission of any mention of the Atlantic Charter by referring to a new United Nations charter that is to be formulated in the future.

Mr. President, as these proposals now stand, they constitute nothing more nor less than a plan to underwrite tyranny. The Treaty of Versailles at least tried to guarantee the integrity of independent states, and in a recent issue of an English publication, The Nineteenth Century and After, it was pointed out very clearly that the Dumbarton Oaks Conference had all the bad features of the League of Nations and none of the good ones-but these proposals are primarily designed to maintain a status quo in which our conquered enemies will constitute the main concern of every policy, agreement, and act on the part of self-appointed policemen. All other considerations, all other interests and rights on the part of the European nations will of necessity be subordinated to this one concern. Mr. Churchill's speech of May 24, 1944, contains full proof of this charge. Mr. Churchill said:

We intend to set up a world order and organization equipped with all the necessary attributes of power in order to prevent future wars or the planning of them in advance by restless and ambitious nations.

How, in the name of goodness, are they going to stop the planning of future wars unless they intervene in the internal affairs of other nations, and who is going to see what the planning it. Is it going to be Mr. Stalin, Mr. Churchill, and the United States? Of course it is.

MR. PEPPER. The sentiment of the Senator from Montana is perhaps more important than that of any other Senator, and I think the Senator should make it clear to us and clear to the country whether he personally favors the setting up of an international organization with power to stop aggression, if necessary by force.

MR. WHEELER. I appreciate the Senator's compliment, and I should perhaps make a big bow to him. Let me say to the Senator that I was for the League of Nations until I went to Europe, as I have explained a great many times. But I am not going to be for any organization, or the setting up of an organization, before I know what the terms of the peace treaty are to be, and what we are to be called upon to enforce. Secondly, I shall never vote to delegate to one man the power to send American boys into war any place, anywhere, and all over the world.

MR. MILLIKIN. But when this war has been finished, what nations will have the power to wage war? It will be the Allied Nations. The idea that there shall be confided to an international organization, and particularly

to one man in it, the power to involve this country in war -with Russia, let us say, or with Great Britain, let us say, or with China, let us say-falls little short of insanity.

I agree with the Senator.

MR. WHEELER. Of course. The only three nations, as the Senator pointed out, which would have power to wage war, would be Russia, England, and the United States, and does he think for one moment that Russia would permit an international organization to say to her, if she wanted to become an aggressor, "You are not going to have the right to take aggressive action"?

MR. MILLIKIN. I do not think Russia would agree, or that Great Britain would agree, or that the United States would agree.

MR. WHEELER. Of course not.

MR. PEPPER. Will the Senator yield further?

MR. WHEELER. I yield.

MR. PEPPER. I wish to be sure I understand and the country understands just what the views of the able Senator from Montana are. Do I understand correctly the Senator to say that he does not favor the establishment of any international organization until after the peace treaty is made, so that its terms may be discovered? MR. WHEELER. That is correct.

MR. PEPPER. So that the Senator would not favor setting up any international organization until the peace is made and the treaty is written?

MR. WHEELER. That is correct.

MR. PEPPER. And the able Senator would not favor the American delegate, or member of the International Security Council, which is contemplated by the Dumbarton Oaks proposal, having authority to vote in favor of the use of the armed forces put at the disposal of the international organization, without, I assume, the matter being referred by the Executive to the Congress. Would the Senator say to the Senate and the House, or only to the Senate?

MR. WHEELER. I would say to the Congress of the United States.

MR. PEPPER. To the Congress of the United States; and then the Congress-by what vote?

MR. WHEELER. By a majority vote.

MR. PEPPER. By a majority vote, specifically authorizing the use of the forces which are at the disposal of the international organization.

MR. WHEELER. Which would be a virtual declaration of war, and I am not willing to take away from the Congress the right to declare war.

MR. PEPPER. So the Senator would not allow any forces to be at the disposal of the international organization for use against an aggressor, insofar as we are concerned, without the specific consent of the Congress of the United States?

MR. WHEELER. Certainly. In the first place, if the aggression were a serious one, if a great war were started by England or by Russia or by the United States, the small force referred to by the Senator from Florida would be of no use. It would be of no value at all except in a small war or in the case of a small country.

Some individuals have said, "We are perfectly willing to allow the Council to act to stop an aggression if it is a minor aggression." All wars generally have begun on a small scale, with small aggressions. Every large outbreak in Europe has generally started from comparatively small bickerings, and with what we would look upon as a small

war.

MR. PEPPER. I thank the Senator for clarifying his position. I wish to make an inquiry relative to the Senator's recent statement respecting the weakness of the League of Nations. Does not the Senator think the weakness of the League of Nations in respect to stopping ag

gression consisted not so much in the inability or the unwillingness of the League to define the aggressor as the incapacity of the League to use any force against the aggressor?

MR. WHEELER. I certainly do not. Let me say to the Senator that Hugh Gibson, who was appointed to be our representative to the League of Nations, and who took part in many of its proceedings, in a recent book has made answer to the Senator's statement when he says that it was not the lack of force on the part of the League of Nations which prevented it from acting. It seems to me that Hugh Gibson should have more knowledge concerning the League than some of us who never attended any of its meetings.

On the other hand, Mr. Gibson said the real trouble arose because of bickerings between the various nations themselves. He said the large nations could get together respecting what to do with some small nation, but they never could get together respecting what to do with a great nation which had violated any of its agreements.

Mr. President, it is only recently that the American people have become conscious of the extent to which the deep cleavages between ourselves and our allies have threatened the whole course of this war and the hope of peace. If we are to be frank and honest about the situation now confronting us, the present trend in power politics would compel us to admit that, in reality, the alleged unity which has existed between ourselves and our allies, Great Britain and Russia, is only an ugly offspring born of the necessities; that actually this new-found harmony was the result of an international shotgun wedding. How else can we explain a continuation of present policies on the part of our allies which appear to a growing body of international opinion as though they were saying to each other, "Carry on; take whatever territory you like; change frontiers to suit your whims and fancies; swap minorities and populations to your heart's content; interfere in the internal affairs of whatever governments you wish; we will talk about principles after we have carved up the world to suit ourselves."

What faith can the other nations of the world have that the Big Three intend to establish a just and decent peace, and what sense is there in talking about an international organization to maintain and enforce treaties, if the Atlantic Charter, which underlies every solemn pledge, promise, and agreement of the most powerful Allied Nations, turns out to be a geopolitical IOU?

In view of the violent contradictions and the basic conflicts with which we are now confronted, there is no point whatever in continuing to pull the wool of propaganda farther down over our eyes. There is just no point in slandering honest and sincere questioning, by indiscriminately pasting the label "Made in Berlin" on every question that arises. It would be an outrage to engage in further recrimination, evasion, or double talk as a substitute for the answers to the serious questions the American people now are asking. Further, it is utter folly to continue to divorce the question of our intentions toward Germany from the question of our intentions toward Europe as a whole, or toward Asia, or toward the whole world.

As I understand the past record of declarations on the part of the Big Three, we are not fighting this war just "to destroy the Nazi tyranny." The continued brandishing of such empty slogans before the eyes of the American people amounts to a deliberate misrepresentation of the real issues on the part of our Government officials. Such phrases as "on to Berlin and Tokyo," "hang Hitler," or "total victory" do not even contain half of the truth. According to our own President, we are not fighting this war just to make it impossible for Germany only to start another war of aggression and conquest that might em

broil the world. According to the solemn declarations of purpose on the part of this Government and our allies, we fight to make the principles of the Atlantic Charter and the "four freedoms" to secure that no nation—not even Russia or England-will be able or will have cause to threaten another vicious attack on the civilized world.

Mr. President, there is simply no use in attacking this position as "irresponsible perfectionism." Who was the perfectionist when this matter was originally brought up? On January 6, 1941, President Roosevelt said, in his annual message, to Congress:

The "fourth freedom" is freedom from fear-which, translated into world terms, means world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any nation anywhere in the world.

If that is not perfectionism, I do not know what it is. Mr. President, as I understand the past record of purposes set down by ourselves and our allies, we are not fighting this war to impose a peace of vengeance upon a conquered people. It is inconceivable to me that the American people would tolerate for one moment any such brutal and savage proposals as those designed by Secretary Morgenthau for the ultimate treatment of the German people or the German nation. Let me repeat what I have said on so many other occasions, that in holding this position I hold no brief for the Nazi brutality, the Hitlerian bestiality and savagery. What I do hold is that such terms will never in a thousand years bring peace to Europe or to the world. Whatever our desires with reference to Germany may be, what we must ultimately consider is not merely what we would like to do in our madness with reference to the German people but what will bring about lasting peace in Europe and throughout the world. Of course, when passions are running high in this country, the popular thing to do is to let madness and hatreds run away with sound judgment; but we must look beyond all that. We in the United States of America, of all people, we who boast of our intelligence and our tolerance, must consider not what we would like to see done but what will be the best for the future of our own country and of the world. What I believe is that for the United States Government to permit the continued use of the basic proposals contained in the Morgenthau "brain child" as representing America's ultimate war and peace aim would cost thousands upon thousands of American lives, as well as the lives of our allies.

Mr. President, I have read a letter from a soldier boy in France which he had written to his uncle, a Texas businessman. I am sorry I do not have the letter with me. In it the boy said, in effect, "The demand for unconditional surrender and Morgenthau's statement are making these Heinies fight like hell from ditch to ditch." A soldier, recently returned from Italy, who was in my office the other day told me practically the same thing.

Mr. President, I believe that in lieu of any basic agreement among the conquerors as to the ultimate treatment of Germany, a continued use of such proposals will only lead to slaughter and carnage. Out of this will arise a savage underground movement over which both of our allies, Great Britain and Russia, will struggle for favor or control. If we do not want Germany ultimately to win this war by holding the real balance in the struggle for the control of Europe between Britain and Russia, if we do not want ourselves sucked into the political, economic, and social vacuum which will exist in Europe when the fighting finally stops, we ought now to agree upon constructive and curative measures.

If I am chided for this stand as being an irresponsible perfectionist or an embittered isolationist, again I ask, Who first brought this issue up?

On January 3, 1940, President Roosevelt solemnly declared:

It is, of course, true that the record of past centuries includes destruction of small nations, enslavement of peoples, and building of empires on the foundation of force. But wholly apart from the greater international morality which we seek today, we recognize the practical facts that with modern weapons and modern conditions, modern man can no longer live a civilized life if we are to go back to the practice of wars and conquests of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Is not that what is taking place today?

Mr. President, if I am not being realistic about the ominous outlook for America in the years ahead, should this war end in the complete disintegration of international morality. and decency for which it is now headed, again I ask, Who first brought this matter up?

In the same speech from which I have just quoted, the President went on to say:

It becomes clearer and clearer that the future world will be a shabby and dangerous place to live in-even for Americans to live in-if it is ruled by force in the hands of a few.

A few? Russia, United States, and England.
The President continued:

We must look ahead and see the possibilities for our children if the rest of the world comes to be dominated by concentrated force alone-even though today we are a very large and powerful nation.

I quote further from the President:

We must look ahead and see the effect on our own future if all the small nations of the world have their independence snatched from them or become mere appendages to relatively vast and powerful military systems.

Mr. President, if I am a perfectionist I am following the example of our Democratic leader when he made the statements which I have read.

Mr. President, if any nation ought to understand the futility of following the present course of action and the sheer madness of trying to perpetuate the status quo at the end of this war, that nation is Russia. No other government has so plainly and so fully documented its antagonism toward the Versailles Treaty and the League of Nations as instruments of the status quo.

On October 8, 1920, Lenin bitterly declared:

By attacking Poland we are attacking the Allies. By destroying the Polish Army we are destroying the Versailles peace, upon which rests the whole system of present international relations. Had Poland become sovietized, the Versailles peace would have been terminated and the system built on victory over Germany would have been destroyed likewise.

What are they doing now? They are attempting to sovietize Poland. And for what?

On March 15, 1923, in a note sent to the general secretary of the League of Nations, the People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs expressed the Soviet Government's attitude toward the League in the following words:

It regards it as a coalition of certain states endeavoring to usurp the power over other states and masking their attempt on the rights and independence of other nations in a false appearance of groundless legality and in the form of the mandates issued by the Council or . . . Assembly of the League of Nations. . . . The Soviet Government maintains its conviction that this pseudo-international body really serves as a policy of certain great powers or their vassals. The Soviet Government finds confirmation for its conviction every time that a state assuming the leading role in the League of Nations makes a decision on international questions, touching the interest of the Soviet Republic.

On March 25, 1925, Mr. Manuiski declared to the Third Congress of Communist Parties:

The true function of Poland is to form a barrier preventing the spread of the Communist idea westward. For that reason the international proletariat must consider as its task the smashing of capitalistic Poland and turning it into a Soviet Republic.

On July 1, 1926, in speaking of the formation of an Anglo-Russian Communist Committee, Mr. Stalin declared:

The task of the new bloc consists in the organization of a vast working-class movement against new imperialistic wars in general, and especially against intervention in our country as planned by the great European powers, particularly England.

Again, in 1926 the Soviet Government issued an official Soviet theoretical statement on the League of Nations from which I quote:

Thus the League is, as a matter of fact, a political combination or a group of nations interested in the preservation and utilization of the post-war international status. Its very name and the universal designation ascribed to it are therefore fictitious.

The League, being a continuation of the Entente, did not change its substance because of the fact that neutral countries had been invited to participate and later on the vanquished states such as Germany in particular-had been Kamitted. The latter ciraumstance witress that, together with adi... ,lsiu

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the preservation of the status created by the Versailles Treaty, another aim of the League is becoming more evident, namely, the establishment of a united front of bourgeois states against the U. S. S. R.

The League can by no means be transformed into a superstate or a federation of states, or even into a loose confederation, because of the irreconcilable contradictions between various capitalistic states, members of the League. The growing antagonism and the concealed struggle among the biggest powers (as, for instance, between Great Britain and France), the constant quarrels and conflicts among the members of the League, the militarist "climate” prevailing in the whole world-all this proves the bankruptcy of the bourgeois pacification.

That conforms to what I said to the Senator a moment ago that the failure of the League of Nations, not only as expressed by the Soviet Government but by our own representatives who attended there, came not because of the fact that it lacked power but because there was bickering from within.

On May 22, 1929, the Fifth Congress of the Union declared in its resolution to the preparatory commission for the Conference on Disarmament of the League:

The rejection of the Soviet proposal by the preparatory commission and refusal of the member states to make the least step in the reduction in land and naval armaments constitute a new proof that those states base their policies on the preparation for a new world war.

On December 28, 1933, Mr. Molotov declared:

That the danger of new wars has become particularly imminent this year is quite clear if only from the following fact. This year Germany and Japan have announced their decision to withdraw from the League of Nations.

On January 26, 1934, Joseph Stalin reported to the Seventh Congress of the Communist Party and I should like to have the Senate listen carefully to this statement:

I do not think a single period in the last decade has been so rich in events as this. A result of the protracted economic crisis was the hitherto unprecedented acuteness of the political situation in capitalist countries, both within the respective countries as well as between them. Quite clearly things are moving toward a new war.

Mr. President, there is no necessity for burdening my colleagues with further evidence of the mutual suspicion and distrust which form the background of the present war. Suffice it to say that these suspicions attach themselves to all parties to such an extent that on March 10, 1939, Mr. Stalin described the world situation in the following words:

To what are we to attribute this one-sided and strange character of the new imperialist war?

He called it an imperialistic war.

It might be attributed to the fear that a revolution might break out if the nonaggressive states were to go to war and the war were to assume world-wide proportions. But the chief reason is that the majority of the nonaggressive countries, particularly England and France, have rejected the policy of collective security, the policy of collective resistance to the aggressors, and have taken up a position of nonintervention, reveals an eagerness, a desire, not to hinder the aggressors in their nefarious work; not to hinder Japan, say, from embroiling herself in a war with China, or, better still, with the Soviet Union; not to hinder Germany, say, from enmeshing herself in European affairs; from embroiling herself in a war with the Soviet Union. ... Cheap and easy. Take Germany, for instance. They let her have Austria, despite the undertaking to defend her independence; they let her have the Sudetan region; they abandoned Czechoslovakia to her fate, thereby violating all their obligations; and then they began to lie vociferously in the press about "the weakness of the Russian Army," the demoralization of the Russian air force," and "riots" in the Soviet Union egging the Germans on to march farther east, promising them easy pickings and prompting them: "Just start war on the Bolsheviks, and everything will be all right."

Such is Russia's interpretation of this present war. Does not this record bear out my contention that Russia, of all countries, will understand and appreciate the realism of my position?

I cannot understand why anyone now, even in the midst of this horrible war, should be condemned for repeating the warnings of the deep conflict of interests and suspicions that divide the Big Three. They have been uttered by prime ministers, dictators, and presidents. As I see my duty, it is to remind my fellow Americans in this crucial hour of our history that our own leaders have continually pointed out the tragedy that is in store for us, should their own fears be realized.

On January 4, 1939, President Roosevelt warned this Nation that:

In a modern civilization, religion, democracy, and international good faith complement each other. Where freedom of religion has been attacked the attack has come from the sources opposed to democracy. Where democracy has been overthrown, the spirit of free worship has disappeared. And where religion and democracy have vanished, good faith and reason in international affairs have given way to strident ambition and brute force.

He was speaking not only of Germany but of Russia as well.

On April 20, 1939, the Soviet Government suggested as the basis for a possible Soviet cooperation with Britain and France what amounted to a partition of Poland. These proposals concluded the admission of Soviet troops into both north and south Poland, Poland's repudiation of her alliance with Rumania and a declaration by the British that their guarantee given Poland applied only to Poland's western frontiers.

When these proposals were refused on August 22, 1939, the Soviets concluded a mutual-aid pact with Germany, which, according to the New York Times of June 22, 1941

contained the obligation not to attack each other and second