Evening star., 1945-12-23


cordance with his own desires. He Sc
lected as his principal advisers men he
considered reliable and devoted to him.
self.
The Office of counselor of the State
Department, abolished after Judge
Walton Moore died, was re-established
and intrusted to an able political philos-
opher, Benjamin Cohen, who had never
had any dealings of consequence with
international matters. The job of Un-
dersecretary of State, particularly i'm
portant in these days when the Secre-
tary will have to attend so many con-
ferenceS outside the United States, was
given to Dean Acheson, an energetic
lawyer who has spent two years in the
State Department as Assistant Secretary
of State in charge of economic matters.
At the head of the newly Di-
vision of Public and Cultural Relations,
which embraces large and diverse activ-
tiles at home and abroad, was placed
under William Benton, a pre-Pearl Har-
Dor isolationist who has now become a
strong internationalist. Mr.. Benton has
had little experience in any political
field. He was a partner of Chester
Bowles in advertising. Only the future
will tell whether he has any particular
qualifications for the important job to
which he has been assigned. Many
more keymen have been brought into
the State Department. 1t has almost
become tradition for every new Secre-
tary of State to streamline it. So far
the streaming under Secretary Byrnes
has consisted of adding large number
of officials from defunct agencies into
that already top-heavy organization.
Truman Not Always Informed.
Complete control over foreign affairs
by President Truman is frequently
by two things-the COM
plete freedom of action Mr.. Truman
has given to his Secretary of State and
the complicated bureaucracy which DOM
mates the State Department today. The
President often does not receive the
proper information from the depart
ment.
Last September this reporter brought
to public attention the fact that Presi-
dent Roosevelt had given certain as
surances to King Ibn Saud of Saudia
Arabia regarding the settlement of the
Palestine question and pointed out that
copies of the memorandum given to the
Arab monarch were in the State De-
partment and in the United States Le-
cation at Cairo.
This story was emphatically denied by
President Truman, who stated in all
frankness that he had looked over all
the correspondence available in the
State Department but found no trace
of such a memorandum
The news was important in the Near
East. King Ibn Saud cabled his Lega-
ton in Washington that he would be
glad to make the paper available to the
President.
The Premier of Syria, who had re-
ceived similar assurances from Mr..
Roosevelt, placed his own file at the dis
posal of the American Government. And
in order to make things easier he al
lowed the papers in Syria to print Mr.
Roosevelt's communication.
BY this time the State Department.
confronted with such irrefutable evil
dence, decided to allow publication of
the correspondence.
Papers Were Seized.
The news of this decision reached the
newspaper in Damascus after it had
gone to press. The whole issue was i'm
mediately suppressed, lest it give ofense
to the American Government. The
papers in Aleppo and HONS did not re-
ceive word in time to stop publication OF
the documents, but conf1scated and sup
pressed copies of the editions carrying
stories of the documents. They were
allowed to publish again the next day
minus the Roosevelt letter-after the
American Charge d'Affaires in Syria
assured the Prime Minister that the
American Government did not wish to
have the newspapers punished.
When Mr.. Truman issued his denial
he was convinced that the so-called
Roosevelt letter was the result of the
overheated Imagination of some Roose-
velt batter. He so told several of his
friends who talked with him about it.
He did ask the State Department to
get to the bottom of the story and was
assured that there was no such letter
in the files of the department.
1t is not known what explanations
were given later to the Chief Executive
as to why he was allowed to issue de-
nial on question, the records of which
existed in the department.
A similar lack of cohesion between the
policies of the President and the State
became apparent a few
weeks ago. Mr.. Truman pointed out
specifically in his Navy Day speech,
when he set forth the Is cardinal points
of Americas foreign policy, that this
country was keenly interested in the
internationalization of the rivers and
the waterways which serve several ma
tions. The Interpretation which was
naturally given to the Presidents speech
was that he favored the internationali-
zation of the Dardanelles-a sore politi-
cal subject involving the relations be-
tween Russia and Turkey.
Surprised by Byrnes' Note.
On November Z, Mr.. Byrnes made
public communication sent to Turkey
about the Dardanelles. This commune
cation provided, among other things,
that the straits should be open to war
ships belonging to Black Sea powers at
all times and the vessels of all other
powers should be denied unless they
move with the consent of the Black