Evening star., 1949-07-14
Arms and the Pact

Arms and the Pact
In order more Effectively to ac1liepe the
objectiues of this Treaty, the Parties.
separately and jointly. by means OF con-
ttnuous and effective selt-help and mutual
aid will maintain and deDelop their tndi-
pidual and collective capacity to resist
armed attack.
1t is primarily because of this section
(Article 81 of the North Atlantic Treaty
that Senator Taft and a like-minded
minority of the Senate's members have
decided to vote against ratification. BY
and large, they appear to favor the pact
to the extent that 1t would commit the
United States to 60 to war in case OF
Soviet attack on Western Europe. But
though they thus support the idea OF
shaking warning finger to deter the
Russians from further aggression, they
have come out in opposition to the twelve
nation alliance on the ground that the
above-quoted paragraph would obligate us,
legally and morally, to rearm all the other
signatories
In other words, the pact's opponents are
going to vote against 1t because they believe
that if they vote for it they must also
vote for the proposed military assistance
program. What they fear, apparently, is
that Article 3 of the treaty constitutes an
ironclad commitment to supply vast
quantities of arms, more or less indis-
criminately, to the overseas members of
the alliance. The State Department.
which advocates immediate armaments
aid of not less than 81 ,450, 900 000-has as
sured them that to support the pact does
not involve an automatic obligation to sup
port such aid. The same assurance has
come time and again from Senators Con-
| nally and Vandenberg. And now it has
been eloquently restated by the highly
informed and distinguished John Foster
Dulles, the newly seated Senator from
New York. But Mr.. Taft and his group
still refuse to be persuaded that they are
wrong.
Yet they are wrong. For the two
measures-the pact and the arms program
are technically separate and distinct,
with each designed to be considered apart
from the other on the basis of its own
merits. The Taft view, however, contains
a certain degree of plausibility because the
phrase mutual aid" in Article certainly
obligates the signatories to help one
another. But that does not mean that
anybody draws a blank check on anybody
else, particularly on us. To begin with,
the treaty provides Tin Article 81 that
mutual aid" is to be effectuated in ac-
cordance with the recommendations of a
special defense committee yet to be Or
ganized. If they are not meritorious or
not necessary, the recommendations can
be turned down. In short, we and the
other members of the alliance will be
bound to do only what is reasonable,
essential and wise. Thus, as far as our
own country is concerned, our hands will
not be tied; through Congress and other
wise, we will be free to decide the extent
and nature of our contribution in terms
Of common sense and necessity.
This freedom of action applies just as
much to the immediate military assistance
program as to the long-term continuous
mutual aid" envisioned in Article g. The
Senators who vote for the pact will not
be obligating themselves to vote for the
kind of arms aid the State Department
proposes. Although some such aid is un-
uo0HgCoiy 1CCOCo, Will US lIlOl dlly
and legally at liberty to modify the depart
ment's plan or even to be inconsistent
enough to reject 1t altogether. Senators
Vandenberg and Dulles have been particu-
larly emphatic on this point. Indeed,
although they are all for the treaty, they
have indicated that they themselves may
favor cutting down on the $1,450, 900 900
project advocated by Secretary Acheson.
Actually, as Mr.. Dulles has declared,
any particular arms program related to
the Atlantic Pact stands on it's own facts,
on its own merits, and can be accepted
or rejected as SUCH" The treaty itself
endows no country with blank check moral
or legal rights. All that it does-and the
"all' is very important-is to commit the
twelve nations to an earnest effort to build
up common and urgently needed defense
area against the threat of Soviet aggres-
sion. When Mr.. Taft and others come out
against 1t on the ground that it obligates
the United States to rearm half the world
on vast scale, they are exaggerating.
Worse, they are creating division and con-
fusion at time when free men everywhere
should be united, clear-headed, strong and
resolute. The Kremlin probably is not
displeased.