AMERICAN POLICY-MAKING

New Zealand Listener, Volume 29, Issue 739, 11 September 1953, Page 13

AMERICAN POLICY-MAKING

THE PRIVATE PAPERS OF SENATOR VANDENBERG, edited by Arthur H. Van- — Jr.; Victor Gollancz, English ides N Washington, it is said, what is a state secret before lunch may be public knowledge in the New York afternoon papers published at mid-day. In London, a:Chancellor of the Exchequer resigns if, on Budget night, a part of his financial proposals appears in the evening papers. Without passing any judgments, we can be grateful: that the developing traditions of the U.S.A. give us, oven-fresh, what has been cooking in

the period before a high official leaves his job. Amongst others, we have had Stettinius, Byrnes and Forrestal; and now, shortly after his death, we have the private papers of Senator Vandenberg, together with at least one document, hitherto sec-

et, which an obliging State Department has released fer the purposes of this book. The extracts from scrapbooks, diaries, letters, articles and speeches cover the period from the outbreak of World War II to the "Korean mess," to quote the Senator. They show the making of a foreign policy through the eyes of one man, but a man who had a key part in the San Francisco Conference which wrote the Charter of the United Nations, and at several subsequent important meetings involving the great Powers, Other. reviewers have noted one of the most important disclosures in the book (one which incidentally complements The Forrestal Diaries), namely, -_the "top-level behind-the-scenes contro--versy over atomic agreements. with Great Britain and Canada" in 1947-49. Vandenberg and others objected to the secret wartime agreement made at Quebec between Churchill and Roosevelt that an atomic bomb would not be used "against any other country unless both. Britain and the United States agreed," and also to the substantial portion of Congo ores being sent to and stored in Britain. The Senators insisted that ‘there must be satisfaction on this "before final action on the Marshall Plan programme." There followed discussions in Washington. with the United Kingdom and Canada in January, 1948. "As a -result the final decision for use of the

bomb was left in the hands of the President. . . The Washington meeting also assured the United States of more ade-

quate ore supplies..."

W. B.

S.