Enslavement Entangled

The enslavement resolution, which the Eisenhower Administration hoped would have bipartisan support, got tangled in Capitol Hill politics.

The trouble began with a slip by Secretary of State John Foster Dulles. Last month, talking over a rough draft of the resolution with Democratic and Republican Congressmen, Dulles promised to check with them again on the final wording. He never did. As sent to Congress by the President, the resolution made no mention of Yalta or Potsdam, though it strongly rejected Russian perversions of World War II agreements that had led to enslavement of other nations. Democrats were pleased. But Republicans were miffed. They argued, in effect, that the Democrats were being allowed to get away with murder. Ever since the war's end, Republicans had hammered at Democrats' responsibility for a sellout of China and Poland at Yalta and Potsdam.

Before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Dulles spoke eloquently for the resolution, overcame Republican objections, won quick and unanimous committee approval. But the Senate proved a tougher hurdle. Majority Leader Robert Taft received notice from more than half of his 48 fellow Republican Senators that they would vote against the resolution unless it was "fixed up"; they wanted, at the very least, to have it made clear that they were not endorsing the Yalta or Potsdam deals. Taft, trying to compromise, threw his support behind an amendment proposed by New Jersey's Alexander Smith: "This resolution does not constitute any determination by Congress as to the validity or invalidity of any of the provisions of the said agreements or understandings." Dulles accepted the change.

Now it was the Democrats' turn to object. Their policy committee denounced the amendment because it implied that the secret agreements might be invalid. The Republican policy committee insisted on the change. Instead of unanimous support, the declarations against enslavement, as amended, seemed headed for a close party-line vote, so close that the resolution would lose its intended impact on the enslaved peoples.

Then fell the news of Stalin's mortal stroke. Republican leaders grabbed it as a chance to avert a partisan brawl. The resolution, said Taft, was not worth a big fight. The Administration began studying ways more effective than resolutions to weaken the Communist grip on the slave nations.

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