Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1953-02-23
The Eisenhower Resolution


1t is good thing, for a number Of reasons,
that President Eisenhowers proposed resolution
on the subject does not call for sweeping or
unqualified condemnation and reputation OF
the once-secret wartime agreements worked out
at Potsdam, Yalta and elsewhere between the
Soviet Union on one hand and Britain and the
United States on the other.
During last years prediction campaign,
more than few Republicans attacked those
agreements in terms too extreme to be justi-
fled. BY implication, it was suggested that
Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman, together
with Winston Churchill and Clement Attlee,
had Willingly or unwittingly joined with
Josef Stain to subjugate whole nations to the
Soviet tyranny. Further, it was indicated that
all the commitments involved would be repudi-
ated If General Eisenhower were elected.
Indeed in his recent state-of the Union
message, the President himself gave the i'm
preston that he favored such course. He did
so when he declared that he would call upon
Congress to join him in resolution making
clear that the United States recognizes no
kind of commitment contained in secret under
standings of the past which permit" the
enslavement of peoples. AS 1t turns out, how
ever, the text of his proposed resolution care
fully refra1nS from repudiating anything or
from suggesting that the wartime agreements
are in themselves to blame for what has since
happened in Eastern Europe and Asia.
Actually, of course, although the Anglo
American concessions involved in them may
have made it easier for Stain to spread his
deSpotism the pacts in question never author
lied or consented to enSlavement of any kind.
On the contrary, they solemnly committed the
Soviet Union to such things as the independence
of nations and free and unfettered elections"
70
very lands that have since been subjugated
behind the Iron Curtain So the President, in
stead of asking for condemnation or repudia-
ton OF the agreements themselves, has done
well to ask Congress to join him in declara-
ton directed against the real villain of the
piece.
That villain is obviously the Kremlin, and
General Eisenhower accordingly has proposed
a resolution emphasizing the following main
points: % That the Soviet dictatorship is
guilty of having violated and perverted" the
wartime pacts in order to subject "the peoples
concerned. including whole nations" to its
totalitarian domination; (2) that the United
States will never acquiesce in such enslavement;
and CD that Congress joins the President in
proclaiming the hope that the captive countries
will once again be free and self-governing and
have all their sovereign political economic and
territorial rights restored in accordance with
the Atlantic Charter
Such declaration, as Secretary Dulles has
explained, will not repudiate any legally effec-
tive agreements or undercut the legal rights
Of the other signatories. One reason why this
is sound is that 1t does not unilaterally reject
commitments to which Britain is a party.
Another good reason for it is that it does not
give the Russians an excuse to invalidate their
obligations as regards places like Berlin. And
a third point in its favor is that it insures the
support of many Democrats who would vote
against resolution calling for outright re.
pudiation of the understandings and, indirectly,
Of the Democratic Presidents who negotiated
them.
Some Republicans, feeling that there is
moral justification for drastic action, have
come out in favor of amending the Eisenhower
resolution to make it much more sweeping.
AS it stands, however, the language proposed by
the President is admirably forceful, and there
should be no changes in it likely to diminish
Democratic support. Certainly, the bigger the
bipartisan vote for it-and the vote ought to
be unanimous-the greater will be its effect
throughout the world.