Arthur Vandenberg to Eleanor Roosevelt

9 January 1947 [Washington, DC]

My dear Mrs. Roosevelt:

Thanks for your fine letter of January 6th.

I deeply appreciate the spirit in which you have written; and I readily confess that the questions you pose give me much the same concern as they do you. It is possible to canvass the matter adequately within the limits of a letter. But I want to be sure that you have my general point of view on the subject insofar as it can be portrayed in a few brief paragraphs.

Your letter deals with two phases of our representation in the General Assembly and in the Council of Foreign Ministers. One is that the representation should be "bi-partisan". The other is that it should be "Congressional". We can dismiss the former in complete agreement. Whatever our representation is in these international contacts, I cordially and emphatically agree with you that it should be "bi-partisan". I think this theory has paid infinite dividends in the last two years. I think it is one of the major reasons why your distinguished husband succeeded in his peace prospectus where the late President Wilson failed. So long as we can keep partisan politics out of foreign affairs, it is entirely obvious that we shall speak with infinitely greater authority abroad. I am emphasizing this fact in the speech which I am making with Secretary Byrnes at Cleveland next Saturday night.⁴ (You may be interested in the enclosed press copy of the speech). Of course "bi-partisanism" is not automatically accomplished by the appointment of bi-partisan spokesmanship. It involves an equal degree of rank and file dedication here at home. Some of our more volatile and violent oracles here at home can jeopardize this result regardless of what our bi-partisan representatives abroad may do. (We have had one or two typical and sinister examples). But I repeat that there is no need to labor this particular point. We are in total agreement.

It is the question of "Congressional" representation which presents the difficulties. I dare to believe that "Congressional" representation in the General Assembly and in the Council of Foreign Ministers has been distinctly useful to the public welfare—as you yourself are good enough to say. I confess that I am very proud of the privilege I have had to participate in these enterprises. I think perhaps it was indispensable in the initial stages of this great adventure. I am not so sure that it is anything like "indispensable" when the new system of international peace and security starts to mature. On the other hand, I am increasingly impressed with the difficulties confronted by "Congressional" representatives because of their dual capacity. Of course it will always be true that a man cannot serve two masters. Yet that is precisely what I undertake to do—for example—when I, as a Senator sit in the General Assembly as a delegate. I am helping to make decisions for the United Nations which must pass in review before the American Congress. Having participated in the United Nations in helping to make the decisions, I am not a "free agent" when I returned to the Senate to function in my "Congressional" capacity. Indeed, it could be a most embarrassing and difficult situation in the event that I did not approve of some decision made by the United Nations. I should dislike to oppose in Congress anything to which I had given my consent (if only by reluctant acquiescence) in the United Nations.

This immediately raises the collateral question that we delegates—for example—in the General Assembly are not "free agents". Indeed, our recent commissions explicitly instructed us that we were to vote as directed by the President. I do not complain of this arrangement. It is contemplated by the basic law under which we are appointed. Nevertheless, it adds to the complications which have me puzzled. I may act under instructions (with which I do not agree) in the General Assembly; and then I return to Congress under what seems to me to be a moral obligation to support, as a Senator, something which I did not and do not approve. In other words, I think there is a question involved here that goes to the typical "checks and balances" which are the real genius of our American institutions.

Ordinarily the General Assembly of the United Nations will be meeting at a time when Congress will be in recess. Ordinarily, therefore, there will be no conflict. But this has not been true of the Council of Foreign Ministers. Therefore, another question arises as to the extent to which an elected Senator (who has taken an oath of fidelity to his Senatorial function) is entitled to absent himself from the Senate to perform other duties. During the last fifteen months I think I have missed at least six months of Senate sessions. Under the British Parliament system this would be perfectly appropriate. But I think its propriety can be fairly questioned under the American system which deliberately separates and divides the functions of government.

All of these considerations would of course apply not only to Senator Connally and to me, but also to any other members of the Senate whom we might designate to share this "itinerancy". Furthermore, I think continuity of service all important. Indeed, I am not sure but what I shall be ultimately driven to the idea that our delegates to the General Assembly should hold full-time jobs the year round so that we can adequately prepare for the participation of the United States in the work of the General Assembly. I was deeply impressed—particularly at the recent session in New York—with the fact that the United States was not contributing an adequate measure of moral leadership because our program was essentially one of negation (except in one or two important instances with which you were particularly associated).

I suppose my feeling about the matter is accentuated by the fact that I was attempting the impossible at the recent New York meetings. I was trying to sit both in the General Assembly and in the Council of Foreign Ministers and meanwhile I was pursued by my long distance Senatorial responsibilities. Of course that is an accumulation of responsibilities which is more than any man can adequately carry or to which any man would long be physically equal.

Now against all of this argument I agree you can powerfully contend for the viewpoint which you have expressed in your good letter. All I can say is that I am irrevocably committed to the achievement of peace and security and justice. It is my paramount and final interest in life. At best I have only a few more years of service (or of life) and I have no wish other than to dedicate them to this objective. So I am prepared to do whatever circumstances may seem to require; and if they seem to require my continued intimate participation in the work of either the United Nations or the Council of Foreign Ministers, I am quite ready and willing to subordinate all other considerations. But I do not want to take these necessities for granted. I think they must be demonstrated to outweigh the other considerations to which I have heretofore adverted. Meanwhile, of course, we may be discussing a purely academic problem because any such continuing participation on my part is primarily dependent upon Presidential invitations.

Whenever you are in Washington I shall be delighted to see you. I shall always have the most pleasant recollections of our contacts in this great work. I congratulate you again upon the thoroughly fine and constructive and courageous contributions which you have made in connection with these labors.

Happy New Year and good luck!

With warm personal regards and best wishes,

                                    Cordially and faithfully,

                                     Arthur Vandenberg

TLS AERP, FDRL

1. After the 1946 mid-term elections, Republicans controlled the House 246 to 188 and the Senate 51 to 45.

2. The Council on Foreign Ministers was scheduled to reconvene for their fourth session in Moscow from March 10 to April 24, where they were to address the terms to be included in the peace treaties they would propose to Germany and Austria (Chase, 174).

3. The election results forced Connally and Vandenberg to trade positions on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Connally now served as its ranking minority member. Rep. Bloom sat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

4. In a speech before the Cleveland Foreign Affairs Forum on January 11, 1947, Vandenberg called for a "united American foreign policy so that despite some inevitable dissidence at home, America could enjoy abroad the enhanced authority of a substantially united front." He dared:

to believe that, despite some distressing domestic interludes, it has borne rich fruit. In any event, partisan politics, for most of us, stopped at the water's edge. I hope they stay stopped—for the sake of America—regardless of what party is in power. That does not mean that we cannot have earnest, honest, even vehement domestic differences of opinion on foreign policy. It is no curb on free opinion or free speech. But it does mean that they should not root themselves in partisanship. We should ever strive to hammer out a permanent American foreign policy, in basic essentials, which serves all America and deserves the approval of all American-minded parties at all times" (Vandenberg, Jr., 334-35).

Interceding for Illegal Immigrants

In late December 1946, Joseph Rosenthal, representing a group of fifteen Jewish detainees on Ellis Island, wrote ER to ask for her "swift intervention" on their behalf. We "young homeless refugees, having suffered through the last years of the catastrophical world conflict in the German concentration camps," decided to "risk the step of coming here illegally." All "the pain and suffering which we endured during these horrible years" made it "very difficult for us to wait for visas." When they arrived in New York, the Immigration and Naturalization Service immediately detained them and "threatened" deportation, despite Rosenthal's insistence that all members of his group had "close relatives and friends who are prepared to take the full responsibility for our settling here."

Rosenthal then made a final plea to ER: "Our only hope remains that with the swift intervention of you, Mrs. Roosevelt and other prominent American personalities, that this edict again[st] us will immediately be annulled."¹

ER then forwarded his appeal to Truman.