in the Department of State on October 12, 1939, pursuant to a directive of the President on the same day, was primarily for the purpose of expediting transmission of defense information and views among the three Departments, but the Office also provided regular assistance to the Liaison Committee. The new secretariat was headed by two officers in the Department of State on a full-time basis, with counterpart officers in the other Departments concerned.13

Related problems of assuring the safety of the Panama Canal with respect to aviation were being concurrently considered by an ad hoc Western Hemisphere Aviation Committee representing the same Departments and also the Civil Aeronautics Authority. These were the first effective steps toward the fruitful working relationships subsequently expanded and consolidated at both policy and operational levels among the three Departments having individually, and together, primary responsibility under the President for the national security and peace.

At the same time, cooperative bilateral arrangements for strengthening the defense forces of the other American republics were being made under standing legislation authorizing, on request by the government of any such republic, provision of United States military, naval, and air missions, training of its student officers in United States service schools, and civilian assistance and training. Furthermore, at the consultative meeting of the Foreign Ministers of the twenty-one American republics, at Panama City September 23 to October 3, 1939, farreaching multilateral measures were agreed upon to maintain neutrality and to facilitate adjustment to the abnormal conditions imposed by the war upon American neutrals. These measures were designed to provide protection against economic dislocation and to assist industrial, agricultural, and commercial development in the American republics. They also provided for the coordination of police and judicial action against subversive activities. The Conference further expressed opposition to the transfer of the sovereignty of any part of the Americas held by a non-American state to another non-American state, and adopted a declaration defining a continental naval security zone, together with provisions for its patrol.

Subsequent naval actions involving German raiders or other belligerent vessels in Western Hemisphere waters resulted on December 23 in a collective protest to Germany, Great Britain, and France by all the American republics on the grounds that these actions compromised the

"Members of the secretariat at the outset were Selden Chapin, Liaison Officer, who had been assisting Mr. Welles in the work of the Liaison Committee, and Harley A. Notter, Assisting Liaison Officer of the Department of State on a brief detail from the Division of American Republics; Col. John A. Magruder and Col. Thomas B. Finley, War Department; and Capt. Roscoe E. Schuirmann and Comdr. Arthur D. Struble, Department of the Navy.

aims of continental protection provided for under the Declaration of Panama.

The European war, meanwhile, ran a most confusing course from intense action in the area of hostilities on and near the Baltic to a strange lull in Western Europe, with far-flung naval actions wherever enemy ships encountered each other. In the Far East, tension resulting from earlier crises but slowly rising under the impact of general war elsewhere marked the situation, though no new major aggression occurred. In the Baltic area, hostilities had spread to Finland by the end of the year. The German attack on Poland had been followed on September 17, 1939, by a Soviet invasion from the east, and eleven days later Poland was partitioned between the victors. The Soviet Union had then moved to strengthen its military position. During September and October, the Soviet Union obtained, by treaty, bases and other military rights in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, and made territorial and military demands on Finland. When these demands were not met, the Soviet Union after rejecting a United States offer of good offices, invaded Finland on November 30. This aggression precipitated the "winter war", which lasted until March 1940 and resulted Vin Soviet expulsion from the League of Nations on December 14, 1939.

ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON PROBLEMS OF FOREIGN
RELATIONS

CONFRONTING these and other developments growing out of the war and with new threats of spreading war and new uncertainties appearing week by week, the Department labored under the urgent necessity of formulating advance policy. Such policy, in response to the fluid circumstances of those early war months, had then to be adapted to day-by-day developments, and decisions largely made in a matter of hours. This Government's continuing over-all policy of working for the establishment of a peace on durable, acceptable lines when and as this became possible also made mandatory, however, longer-range policy preparation by the Department that would take into account the uncertainty regarding the outcome and the possible effects of the struggles to the east and west of us. This over-all policy had been stated at the outset, on September 3, 1939, by the President:

66

it seems to me clear, even at the outbreak of this great war, that the influence of America should be consistent in seeking for humanity a final peace which will eliminate, as far as it is possible to do so, the continued use of force between nations."

It was in the interest of this larger, later security, as well as of the immediate tasks of defense, that in the same address to the American people the President made his plea "that partisanship and selfishness

be adjourned, and that national unity be the thought that underlies all others." 14

The necessity of preparing carefully and fully the policy to be pursued in relation to the future peace was being discussed in various American quarters.15 The Council on Foreign Relations in New York, upon the initiative of Hamilton Fish Armstrong, Editor of Foreign Affairs, and Walter H. Mallory, Executive Director, had proposed to Assistant Secretary of State George S. Messersmith as early as September 12 to expand its studies on foreign relations and to make them available for the use of the Department. This offer was accepted after consideration by Secretary Hull and Under Secretary Welles. Various other organizations offered help, including the Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America. The Department did not, however, give directives or special support to any of these groups.

to

Abroad, Pope Pius XII, in an address delivered November 10, 1939, suggested the need of founding a stable international organization at the end of the war. In the British Foreign Office a group of experts, assisted by the Royal Institute of International Affairs in a semiofficial capacity, had been organized directly after the commencement of the war to make preparatory studies for future peace settlements. Within the Department of State, Secretary Hull on September 16, 1939, appointed Leo Pasvolsky his Special Assistant primarily to work on problems of peace. From time to time thereafter, proposals for organized consideration of these problems were discussed by the Secretary and Mr. Pasvolsky. Similar proposals emphasizing the ✓ advisability of such preparation within the Department of State rather than outside, as in the case of The Inquiry under Col. Edward M. House in the Administration of President Woodrow Wilson, were presented to Under Secretary Welles in November and December by Harley Notter, then on detail from the Division of the American Republics to the Office of Under Secretary-Liaison.

The President addressed messages on December 23, 1939, to Pope Pius XII, to the President of the Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America, and to the President of the Jewish Theological

"Peace and War, pp. 483-85.

"Among the earliest articles in the American press was that by Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt, in her column "My Day," Sept. 11, 1939: "The world must eventually be reorganized for peace, and let us pray that this time we will have strength and foresight enough to plan a more permanent way of peace . . . I should like to see an international group meeting now continuously to plan for future peace." Among discussions and editorial comment was that in the Washington Post Nov. 13, dealing with "the question of the kind of a world which is to be ushered in when the guns are stilled . . . It is certainly not too soon to begin thinking about and planning for that new and more orderly world. And nowhere is the necessity greatest of neutrals."

greater than in the United States, the

Seminary of America, voicing the belief that while at present no spiritual or civil leader could move forward on a specific plan to build a new order of things "the time for that will surely come." He expressed a desire to "encourage a closer association between those in every part of the world-those in religion and those in governmentwho have a common purpose." In the letter to the Pope he said that he wished to send "to you my personal representative in order that our parallel endeavors for peace and the alleviation of suffering may be assisted." For this purpose the President appointed Myron C. Taylor as his personal representative to Pope Pius XII, with the rank of ambassador extraordinary.18

On December 27 Secretary Hull came to a decision on the organization within the Department of State of preparations on postwar problems. This decision to establish a departmental "committee on problems of peace and reconstruction" was made in a meeting held by the Secretary attended by most of the senior officers on duty at that time: Under Secretary Sumner Welles; Judge R. Walton Moore, Counselor; George S. Messersmith, Assistant Secretary; Adolf A. Berle, Jr., Assistant Secretary; Green H. Hackworth, Legal Adviser; Leo Pasvolsky, Special Assistant to the Secretary; Herbert Feis, Economic Adviser; Henry F. Grady, Assistant Secretary; Stanley K. Hornbeck, Political Adviser; and Jay Pierrepont Moffat, Chief of the Division of European Affairs. The agreed functions of the committee, as projected in the proposal memorandum presented by Mr. Pasvolsky,

were

"To survey the basic principles which should underlie a desirable world order to be evolved after the termination of present hostilities, with primary reference to the best interests of the United States; "In the light of the principles indicated above and of past experience, to determine policies which should be pursued by the United States in furtherance of the establishment of such a world order, both as a basis of our own action and of our attempts to influence other nations;

"In the light of the principles and policies indicated above, to examine proposals and suggestions made from various sourcesboth official and unofficial-as regards problems of peace and reconstruction."

To provide the necessary assistance to the committee, a further memorandum projected the establishment of a division in the Department for the study of problems of peace and reconstruction, to assemble information and views, and make analyses in regard to international economic relations and related problems, territorial and political problems, armament problems, neutral rights and obligations, and general machinery of international cooperation." As then en

16 For the exchange of correspondence, see Department of State Bulletin, I, 711, and II, 130.

visaged, this would have entailed a small staff, gathered from among the existing professional officer personnel of the Department. These officers, however, were already hard-pressed. With the outbreak of war, the Department's routine activities had increased in number and complexity, and new, extraordinary functions had had to be undertaken. As of October 1939, the total professional and clerical staff of the Department, apart from the Foreign Service, was verging on 900 of whom barely 200 were professional officers. This part of the plan of organization therefore was not adopted.18

It was determined that the committee would work through three subcommittees considering, respectively, political problems including the organization of peace, limitation and reduction of armaments, and economic problems. Secretary Hull conceived the role of both the committee and its subcommittees to be recommendatory on immediate problems arising out of the war as well as exploratory on longer-range questions. This conception, together with the original idea of organizing a group of departmental officers functioning under the Secretary, caused the committee to be established as advisory to the Secretary of State.

the

Although the subcommittees began to meet promptly, the name of the committee was not settled until January 8, 1940, when the title "Advisory Committee on Problems of Foreign Relations" was approved. On the same day, in order to obviate possible international and domestic misconceptions if the work and organization of the new group were to become known without clarification of purpose, a public statement was issued, reading:

"Advisory Committee on Problems of Foreign Relations. The war has brought about, and is continuing to bring about, a series of measures and policies on the part of both belligerents and neutrals which immediately affect the United States and which may have consequences of an enduring nature upon our country's foreign relations once peace is established.

"Some of the most important and immediate of these measures and policies are in the field of economic activity and relations. The war has absorbed the labor and production of much of the world in armament and military activity. When the war ends, problems of readjustment to peace-time production will be presented, which may gravely affect the United States.

Accordingly, the Secretary of State has set up in the Department a Committee which will gather data on and study both the immediate and long-range results of overseas war measures and the manner in which the problems arising from them may best be handled so as to avoid shock and to prevent undesirable enduring results.

"In an effort later to meet the need for technical assistance, the offices and divisions of the Department were requested on Jan. 22, 1940, to render full cooperation.