Post-Yalta Tactics

While Franklin Roosevelt was still on tour, a carefully planned campaign was set rolling on the home front to: 1) publicize the Crimea Charter and the President's hand in it; 2) win the friendship of Congress.

The President has a clear objective; he also has a timetable worked out for it. He wants the agreement setting up an international organization to be submitted to Congress by June 1, and he would like ratification of it by the end of summer.

Accordingly, the President's recent conciliatory attitude to Congress was not only continued, but emphasized with utmost care. First off, on the day the Yalta communique was issued, amiable Presidential Assistant James M. Barnes, onetime Congressman, rushed to the Capitol with the document, gave both Democratic and Republican Senators a look at it before its public release. This special treatment had its effect: a chorus of immediate cheers for the charter echoed through the Senate and House chambers.

Next day, OWMR Boss Jimmy Byrnes suddenly reappeared in Washington, having made the 6,700-mile trip from Yalta in 38 hours. Without wasting a minute, he called a press conference. It appeared that Jimmy Byrnes's role was to be the official interpreter of the Crimea Charter to the U.S. people and the Congress.

To 125 newsmen, Jimmy Byrnes disclosed some new facts about Franklin Roosevelt's activities in the Crimea (see INTERNATIONAL). He said the President had: 1) chairmanned the conference; 2) devised the compromise on the Dumbarton Oaks voting formula; 3) written the section on treatment of liberated countries. Later the assistant President went to Capitol Hill, talked over Yalta with Senators and Representatives of both parties. Among his guests at a Senate lunch: Montana's articulate, isolationist Burton K. Wheeler, who seemed impressed if not satisfied with what he heard.

Help from Democrats. Meanwhile other Administration bigwigs were dramatizing the role of the U.S. in international affairs. Treasury Secretary Morgenthau appeared before the St. Louis Chamber of Commerce with a fervent plea for adoption of the Bretton Woods monetary agreement. Before a House committee, Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson made an able argument for the continuation of Lend-Lease. And Secretary of State Stettinius turned up in Moscow, where he chatted with Molotov and made the required visit to the ballet. Four days later he appeared at Brazilian President Getulio Vargas' summer home in the mountains above Rio, for a chat on his way to the Hemisphere conference at Mexico City.

In choosing the U.S. delegation to Mexico City, Franklin Roosevelt had shrewdly picked five members of Congress, with a sprinkling of businessmen. Now, just one day after Yalta, he announced his nominations for the U.S. delegation to the world security conference at San Francisco in April. His choices included a few surprises.

Help from Republicans? As the top-ranking Republican members, Franklin Roosevelt did not pick, as he might have, the ranking minority member of the Foreign Relations Committee (Hiram Johnson), nor the titular leader of the party (Governor Dewey). He chose Michigan's Senator Arthur H. Vandenberg and Commander Harold E. Stassen, ex-Governor of Minnesota, flag secretary to famed Admiral "Bull" Halsey.

Senator Vandenberg's pre-eminence as G.O.P. spokesman on foreign policy was questioned by none. But the nomination put him in a ticklish position. Some critics averred that Frankln Roosevelt had roped Senator Vandenberg in. At week's end, the Senator was still mum, but it was clear that if he went to San Francisco he would go: 1) with no strings attached, and 2) as an individual Senator and not as head of a G.O.P. senatorial bloc.

The choice of Harold Stassen was criticized by some as a slap at Tom Dewey, by others as a payoff for Fourth Term campaign support by Harold Stassen's protege, Senator Joe Ball. But no one doubted Harold Stassen's sincere interest in international cooperation, nor his determination to speak his mind when events called for it. By the time the San Francisco conference opens, Harold Stassen will be out of his Navy uniform and free to talk.

The rest of the U.S. delegation will consist of Democrats Stettinius, Cordell Hull (still recuperating in Bethesda Hospital), Tom Connally and Sol Bloom; Republican Congressman Charles Eaton of New Jersey; and Barnard College Dean Virginia Crocheron Gildersleeve. All are longtime proponents of international cooperation.

Throughout the week's developments ran two threads. The first was Franklin Roosevelt's determination to avoid Woodrow Wilson's great mistake; he was obviously going to consult with Congress and give the G.O.P. fair representation in any peace discussions. The second was his determination to work hard & fast for the setting up of an international organization, before war's end might cool the U.S. people's ardor for it.

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