CHAPTER X

Organization for Advanced Preparation January-July 1944

T

HE ALLIES were moving toward victory as 1943 closed. In southern Europe, the new Government of Italy, after the signature of surrender terms early in September 1943, had entered the war against Germany on October 13. On the Eastern Front, Russian forces had advanced to the Dnieper in September and had retaken Dnepropetrovsk in October and Kiev early in November. In the Pacific some gain had been registered, in the Ellice Islands in September and in the Gilberts in November. The coming January was to find the Russians driving into prewar Poland, the Western Allies landing on the Anzio Beach in Italy, and a further victory won against the Japanese at Rabaul.

The Three Power conferences in the autumn of 1943 had resulted in two far-reaching developments. The strategic coordination of future major offensives against Germany was accomplished;1 and a general basis of agreed objectives upon which the preparation of postwar policy could proceed toward definite recommendations was achieved. The most notable of these agreed objectives was the future establishment of a general organization for international peace and security, but international discussion had also been started on the treatment of enemy states, fundamental economic problems, and other aspects of postwar international relations. In addition, machinery for further joint consideration of some postwar problems had been agreed upon-the European Advisory Commission and the Advisory Council for Italy agreed upon at the Moscow Conference—and the practice of Great Power discussions and meetings was established.

The changing situation suggested by these developments was reflected in the Department's preparation for the peace, which had passed in this period from the exploration and analysis of postwar, problems into an intermediate stage in which main lines of action were clarified and major negotiations undertaken along some of these lines. By the end of 1943, the preparation was no longer confined largely to

the Advisory Committee and the research staff. It had become an effort involving many operating units of the Department, interdepartmental collaboration, consultations with the Congress and the President, increased public discussion, negotiations among the major powers, and exchanges of view with other United Nations looking toward the establishment of international agencies of both a transitional and permanent character in various specialized fields.

These developments pointed in the main, despite the varying rates of progress possible or desirable in the case of the different problems concerned, to the imminent arrival of the stage of final recommendations, decision, and action. The need for adjustments to meet the requirements of this stage of advanced preparation was influential among the reasons for the Departmental reorganization put into effect by Secretary Hull on January 15, 1944, better to adapt "the administrative framework of the Department to meet the constantly changing war situation and the foreseeable postwar demands upon our foreign policy."2 The reorganization marked the close of the twoyear period during which the postwar preparation had rested structurally on the Advisory Committee and had depended for its financial support almost wholly upon the President's Emergency Fund. Much that had distinguished the approach, method, and structure of that Committee and its subcommittees and research staff now entered into the "regular" organization of the Department.

THE POLICY AND POST-WAR PROGRAMS COMMITTEES

TWO HIGH-LEVEL policy committees were established under the reorganization, distinguished not by superiority of one over the other but by their different purposes. The Policy Committee was to assist the Secretary of State in considering major questions of foreign policy and was therefore to concentrate on current questions. The Post-War Programs Committee was to give him assistance in formulating postwar policies and in making the appropriate international arrangements for their execution.

Secretary Hull was Chairman, and Under Secretary Stettinius Vice Chairman of both Committees. In their absence, Assistant Secretary Berle or one of the other Assistant Secretaries presided, in order of precedence. To a substantial extent, the two Committees had a common membership: the Assistant Secretaries, the Legal Adviser, the Special Assistants to the Secretary, and ex officio, the Directors of the twelve Offices that were created on January 15. Isaiah Bowman, Norman H. Davis, and Myron C. Taylor of the Informal Political Agenda

2

Departmental Order 1218, Department of State Bulletin, X, 45–67. This reorganization is not to be confused with that brought about by Mr. Stettinius at the close of 1944.

Group and the Secretary's "consulting group" were members of the Post-War Programs Committee, and not infrequently also attended Policy Committee meetings, particularly when these meetings were held immediately before those of the Post-War Programs Committee. Limited attendance of alternates to the Directors of the twelve Offices was permitted from the start in the Post-War Programs Committee, and from the third meeting in the case of the Policy Committee. Directors who had originally attended continued in certain instances to participate after transferring to some other position. One or more specialists from the Divisions interested in the problems under consideration customarily briefed the Committee on behalf of the country, area, economic, or other interdivisional committee that had prepared the papers being discussed and took part in that discussion as experts. A total of approximately seventy officers thus appeared at one or more meetings of each Committee.

The Policy Committee held ninety-one meetings, January 19-November 29, 1944, inclusive. It met Monday and Wednesday, 9 to 10 a. m., and Friday 9 to 9: 15 a. m. before the meeting of the Post-War Programs Committee. Visiting ambassadors or Foreign Service officers back from their field posts often joined in these meetings.3 The Executive Secretary was Charles W. Yost, who was assisted by a small secretariat to maintain minutes, distribute documents, send summaries to United States Missions abroad, and in some matters follow up the decisions taken.

The Post-War Programs Committee held sixty-six meetings, ending V November 17, 1944, for sixty of which minutes were issued. It was

3 The membership and attendance of the Policy Committee, aside from visiting ambassadors and invited experts, were Secretary Hull (14); Under Secretary Stettinius (64); Assistant Secretaries Berle (71), Long (78), Acheson (70), and Shaw (69); Legal Adviser Hackworth (71); Special Assistant Pasvolsky (63); Special Assistant Joseph C. Green (49); Special Assistant Maxwell M. Hamilton (6); Assistant to the Secretary Charles E. Bohlen (8); and Office Directors ex officio: John Dickey (63); Laurence Duggan (50) succeeded by Norman Armour (17), Philip Bonsal, alternate (5), Joseph McGurk, alternate (6); James C. Dunn (64), H. Freeman Matthews, alternate (10), John D. Hickerson, alternate (5) ; Stanley K. Hornbeck (82), and later Joseph C. Grew (45), Joseph Ballantine, alternate (7); Wallace Murray (61), Paul Alling, alternate (27); John G. Erhardt (25); Harry C. Hawkins (49) and later Bernard F. Haley (16), Leroy D. Stinebower, alternate for each (34); John C. Ross (15); Charles P. Taft (85); Edwin C. Wilson (21), alternate Harley Notter (20) and later Alger Hiss (17); and General Consultant Carlton Savage (51). Experts frequently attending included Cavendish W. Cannon (8), Durward V. Sandifer (12), and George L. Warren (14).

Isaiah Bowman participated in eight meetings, Norman H. Davis in three, and Myron C. Taylor in eleven.

'One organizing and sixty-six substantive meetings were noted in the record, but the 11th was combined with that of the Policy Committee, the 13th was canceled, and minutes were not distributed for five meetings.

constituted of the following, the number of these sixty meetings attended being indicated after each name: Secretary Hull (15); Under Secretary Stettinius (31); Myron C. Taylor (16); Isaiah Bowman (18); Norman H. Davis (1); Assistant Secretaries Berle (41), Long (55), Acheson (44), Shaw (40); Legal Adviser Hackworth (44); Special Assistant and Executive Director of the Committee Pasvolsky (48); Special Assistant Joseph C. Green (45); Special Assistant Maxwell M. Hamilton (2); Special Assistant Michael J. McDermott (40); Assistant to the Secretary Charles E. Bohlen (2); and Office Directors: John S. Dickey (33); Laurence Duggan (34) succeeded by Norman Armour (3), Philip Bonsal, alternate (1), Joseph McGurk, alternate (5); James C. Dunn (37), H. Freeman Matthews, alternate (7), John D. Hickerson, alternate (8); Wallace Murray (22), Paul H. Alling, alternate (21), George V. Allen, alternate (5); John G. Erhardt (7), Nathaniel P. Davis, alternate (1); Harry C. Hawkins (32), Bernard F. Haley (7) and Leroy D. Stinebower, alternate for each (43); Stanley K. Hornbeck (58), Joseph C. Grew (30), and Joseph Ballantine, alternate for each (36); John C. Ross (4), Robert E. Ward, alternate (1), Robert J. Ryan, alternate (1); Charles P. Taft (52); Edwin C. Wilson (7), Harley Notter, alternate (33) and Alger Hiss, alternate (16); and General Consultant Carlton Savage (47). The experts from the research staff most frequently attending included George H. Blakeslee (9), David Harris (20), Philip E. Mosely (28), and Durward V. Sandifer (15), with many others attending a few times. Experts from operating Divisions frequently attended one or more meetings on subjects in their fields.

The Post-War Programs Committee convened February 1, having delayed its first meeting until a small professional secretariat could be assembled and a long-range agenda and special documentation for the early meetings prepared. This agenda of twenty-six problem fields was endorsed by the President. The Committee suspended meetings during the period of the Dumbarton Oaks Conversations, but otherwise it averaged over its ten active months approximately two meetings a week, Friday at 9:15 a. m. and Thursday at 9 a. m., with some meetings on other mornings. The meetings lasted up to two hours and occasionally longer.

The secretariat of the Post-War Programs Committee, unlike that of the Policy Committee, was by intention entirely a professional body, with initiatory as well as executive duties similar to those of the research staff in its comparable work under the previous preparatory structure. The institution of a central or executive secretariat, which hereafter became a fixed part of subsequent Departmental or

For the list of fields, see appendix 31.

ganization, was thus derived structurally from the type of secretariat functions developed by the research staff of the Advisory Committee. The Executive Director of the Post-War Programs Committee, Mr. Pasvolsky, was vested with "full authority under the Secretary to organize the Committee's work and to call upon the various Offices and Divisions of the Department for such assistance as may be required in carrying out the Committee's responsibilities." Serving under Mr. Pasvolsky were two executive secretaries: Mr. Rothwell in the political field and John H. Fuqua in the economic field. They were assisted by William A. Brown, Jr., Robert W. Hartley, Miss Ruth Russell, Wells Stabler, Miss Carmel Sullivan, and later Miss Edna Fluegel. All but two of these officers had been members of the research staff or had previously been assigned to Mr. Pasvolsky's office. Moreover, in the work of both the Post-War Programs Committee and the Policy Committee, the techniques already developed by the research staff of the Advisory Committee were carried over and further elaborated. The use of background papers, problem analyses, and policy summaries as developed by the research staff became widely disseminated throughout the Department beginning with this absorption into Departmental organization of the Advisory Committee and its procedures.

The two superior Committees undertook to provide central coordination of all postwar preparation, the refinement and approval of recommendations, and the rendering of decisions within the jurisdiction of their highest officials. They were the principal instrumentalities under the Secretary for formulating foreign policy to meet the problems that pressed for decision in 1944 as the war effort drove month by month nearer victory. They represented also a new basis of organization for the Department, evolved in the light of its expanding responsibilities as the range of international relations of probable concern to the United States as a world power widened.

Although the work of the Post-War Programs Committee was longer-range than that of the Policy Committee, the former Committee, in practice, functioned under a no less urgent demand for decision than the latter, since many postwar problems were swiftly becoming current problems either for negotiation or for action in areas already or about to be liberated by the Allies. That the current and postwar aspects of foreign policy were converging could be seen in the early request of the Policy Committee for an analysis and statement of the principles and concepts governing the present war aims and probable future objectives of each of the Great Powers, and in the early decision of the Post-War Programs Committee to give priority to policies and programs affecting current operations. On occasion, conse