Postwar Prelude

The biggest news in Congress last week was not a speech, nor a debate, nor a bill dropped into a hopper. It was an event which took place unannounced, almost unnoticed. It was merely a proposal for a practical move to enable the U.S. to make sense at the peace table when war ends:

Congress, according to the best available evidence, is about to become a partner of Franklin Roosevelt in planning the postwar world. The importance of such a partnership can best be judged by what can happen in its absence: 1) no peace treaty negotiated by a U.S. President is worth the paper it is written on unless it is approved by two-thirds of the Senate; 2) no postwar plan can succeed unless the U.S. people and their representatives believe in it.

On Capitol Hill, word spread last week that Franklin Roosevelt was prepared to take Congress into his confidence, would welcome its help on postwar planning. New York's Senator Robert F. Wagner, great & good friend of the President, said that he would soon introduce a resolution for a joint planning committee: three members from the Senate, three from the House, six appointed by the President.

Senator Wagner had introduced such a resolution before, 32 days after Pearl Harbor. But that time he let the idea die, a trial balloon collapsed and brought to earth. This time he was determined to see it through. No one wise in the ways of Washington believed that he would take such a stand unless his feet were on solid White House ground.

1943 v. 1919. The great fear of other countries is that after World War II the U.S. may once again, as it did in 1919, turn a broad and naively self-sufficient back on the rest of the world. Yet there is no binding parallel between 1919 and 1943.

Among the many reasons for the failure of Woodrow Wilson's dream of a vigorous League of Nations, three were outstanding: 1) he conducted most of the postwar debate himself, thus became irrevocably committed on its details; 2) he presented his blueprint to Congress as a rigid specification, take it or leave it--and Congress left it; 3) the American people were suspicious of the kind of planning that emerged from the bickering diplomats at Versailles.

Franklin Roosevelt has thus far avoided the first of Wilson's errors. He has bided his time, has left the debate to others: Vice President Henry A. Wallace, Secretary of State Cordell Hull, Under Secretary of State Sumner Welles, Republican Harold E. Stassen, Republican Wendell Willkie. (One great difference between 1919 and 1943 is the number of men, of varying domestic views, who see eye to eye about the problems of the peace to come.)

If Franklin Roosevelt is really determined to do, his planning with Congress, and thus with the people, he has avoided the second Wilsonian error. As for the third factor which wrecked Woodrow Wilson's 1919 dream--the desires and diplomacies of other nations--Franklin Roosevelt, the Congress and the people of the U.S. will still be dependent on factors beyond their immediate control.

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