Evening star., 1946-12-01
Senate Plagued
By War Pacts
Question Of Honoring
Y Secret Agreements
to Come Up
By Constantine Brovn

When the Eightieth Congress con-
venes in January, the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee is expected to take
up one of the most ticklish problems in
the history of this country-whether
certain secret agreements reached at
Teheran and Yalta will have to be hon.
ored by the Senate.
The war powers afforded to the Presi-
dent during the great emergency after
December Z, 1941, were very extensive
and were intended to be so in order to
permit the executive branch to carry on
its immense burden without delay. The
Senate, however, has never empowered
the Chief Executive to make treaties
without the advice and consent of the
Senate, provided two-thirds of the SEN
ators present concur" as is stipulated
In the Constitution.
This provision of our Constitution has
never been violated in literal sense.
But as things have developed, 1t appears
that the so-called agreements reached
in secret at the two most important
meetings among President Roosevelt and
Prime Ministers Stain and Churchill
Teheran and Yalta-went beyond the
wartime powers given by Congress.
The official communiques published
after these momentous conferences did
not give the real picture of what hap
pened in the salons of the Soviet En-
bassy at Teheran or at the palace of the
former Cars near Yalta, where the sec
ond conference took place.
Polish Partition.
The public was told the Teheran ses-
sions dealt almost exclusively with mill
tary problems of how to defeat the
enemy in the quickest way. In the light
of official and unofficial publications
which have come to light since the end
of the war, it is obvious that Mr.. Roose-
welt placed his stamp of approval on the
partitioning of Poland. The fact that
he was supported in this step by
Britain's Prime Minister is matter of
indifference to the Senate.
It is known now that the conferees
agreed that parts of Poland should be
ceded to Russia for no other reason than
that the U. S. S. R. wanted them. When
Polands Premier Mikola jczyk later went
to Moscow to discuss with Stain the
questions of the future borders of
Poland, he was bluntly informed that
q large slice of Eastern Poland would
have to be given to the U. S. S. r.
When he protested, saying that he had
understood from President Roosevelt
that Polish territory was to remain in
tact, Stain called in the then American
Ambassador to Moscow, w. Averell
Hartman, and asked him to tell what
he knew. Mr.. Hartman; who had at
tended the Teheran Conference ad-
mitted that such an agreement had been
made in December, 1943.
Insofar as the Senate is concerned,
this partitioning of a country for which,
In part, we fought the war, cannot be
considered as mere agreement on the
part of President Roosevelt on the basis
of the wartime powers granted him by
Congress. This is treaty, since it deals
with country whose boundaries have
been officially recognized by the United
States.
The same applies to the Kurile Islands,
which were handed over to the U. S.
S. R. at the Yalta Conference as a part
of bargain on the part of our late
Chief Executive in order to clinch
Soviet participation in the Far Eastern
war. The Kurile Islands were a part
and parcel of the japanese Empire
which had obtained them from Russia
not by conquest but by deal, very much
along the line of our deal with Russia
in regard to Alaska.
If, at a peace conference, the repre-
sentatives of the nations which have
defeated Japan wish to give these is
lands to Japan and the American rep
resentative consents, the transfer would
be legitimate, provided, however, the
peace treaty received the two-thirds
approval of the Senate. But, accord
ing to many members of the new Senate,
the President has no right or power to
make an agreement granting the terri
tory of sovereign country with which
(see BROWN, Page C-sJ