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UNRRA Draft Agreement and UNRRA Aid to Italy

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COMMENTARY

United States concern for world economic stability took various forms early in the course of the Second World War.' Questions of wartime supply of agricultural and raw materials, market stability, and postwar relief projections became inseparable in 1941 and 1942, particularly as European governments-in-exile began to use their foreign exchange reserves to accumulate large stores of bulk commodities in anticipation of their countries' postwar needs. The latter practice disrupted normal supply patterns and threatened wartime requirements of the anti-Axis powers. An attempt to solve this problem within the framework of the Anglo-American allocation boardsthe Combined Raw Materials Board, the Combined Food Board, and the Combined Production and Resources Board 2—and the British-managed Inter-Allied Committee on Postwar Requirements yielded reluctant cooperation among the Western Allies but was challenged by the Soviet Union, which preferred a more truly international allocation mechanism. In June 1943 the Department of State circulated among friendly countries a draft agreement for a United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, which would at least put the postwar supply and distribution question on an international basis.

The Committee on Foreign Affairs heard testimony on July 7, 1943, from Assistant Secretary of State Dean Acheson over the proposed new organization. As discussed

1 See the general introduction to this section, pp. 7–18.

2 The first Board was established in January 1942. The latter two were created in June 1942 and were subsequently joined by Canada.

in the hearing, relief and rehabilitation were conceived broadly to provide for stability and order in liberated areas and prevent the radicalization of indigenous political forces following the end of combat in a particular area. In all instances military requirements would take precedence over relief operations. The committee was pleased at the State Department presentation of the program as representing relative savings to the United States by covering relief costs on a multinational basis, while the United States would administratively have de facto control over UNRRA.

The committee took exception to certain aspects of the proposal. There were especially bitter complaints over what the members perceived to be the Department's practice of bypassing their committee, by using executive agreements in lieu of legislatively sanctioned treaties and other agreements, or by seeking appropriations for programs without first obtaining approval from the two congressional committees charged with foreign affairs oversight. In the present instance there was no particular bill or resolution on the UNRRA proposal. Appropriations might thus be made in Congress without there having been hearings of any substance or a report issued by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee or the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. Toward the end of 1943 and in early 1944 the committees did finally hold hearings over the question of endorsing the UNRRA agreement and enabling the United States to participate in the organization, to which the Government had committed the country by signing the final UNRRA agreement on November 9, 1943. A congressional conference committee resolved differences between the two Houses," and a joint

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'See Committee on Foreign Affairs, "To enable United States to participate in work of United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration: Hearings on H.J. Res. 192, 78th Cong., 1st and 2d sess., Dec. 7, 1943-Jan. 11, 1944" (Washington, 1944) and Foreign Relations Committee, same title, 2d sess. only, Feb. 9 and 10, 1944 (Washington, 1944), as well as the committee's respective reports on H.J. Res. 192, H. Rept. 994, 78th Cong., 2d sess., Jan. 17, 1944, and S. Rept. 688, 78th Cong., 2d sess., Feb. 14, 1944.

4 For the text of the UNRRA agreement, see appendix III, p. 281. 5 H. Rept. 1260, 78th Cong., 2d sess., Mar. 15, 1944.

resolution for UNRRA was approved on March 28, 1944, as Public Law 267, 78th Congress.

By the war's end in Europe, UNRRA had grown considerably, providing immediate postwar relief to civilian populations as quickly as possible. On July 7, 1945, the Committee on Foreign Affairs held a hearing on the question of extending UNRRA aid to Italy, the first former enemy to be given this formal consideration. Although no special legislation was then before the committee, the Department of State thought it desirable to obtain some form of congressional support before broaching the issue with the members of the UNRRA Council. A cluster of diplomatic issues centering on Italy had already been the subject of highly politicized hearings," and the Roosevelt administration clearly hoped to link the need for a general increase in aid through UNRRA, which would require new appropriations, to the apparent congressional support for lenient treatment for Italy in particular. This motivation for the hearing elicited discussion of broader scope than the Italian question alone.

The July 7, 1945, hearing took place a week before the Potsdam Conference was to convene, and the emerging tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union were reflected in the discussion of UNRRA's multilateral character. Both the administration and Congress found justification for continuing UNRRA and especially for extending its aid to Italy in their fear of a social and economic collapse in war-damaged Europe and the consequent rise of indigenous Communist and radical movements with Soviet support or encouragement. While sympathetic to this theme in Mr. Acheson's statement at this hearing, the committee voiced various objections to UNRRA's operations and the feared lack of American control over the distribution of U.S. funds channeled

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See the committee's hearings on "Relations with Italy," which appear elsewhere in this volume.

'Mr. Acheson's remarks to the committee, which described UNRRA as a means for combating radicalism are repeated with greater directness and emphasis in his autobiography. See Dean Acheson, Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department (New York, 1969), p. 66.

through UNRRA. Further complaints concerned claims that socialists or Communist sympathizers were employed in the program, that relief moneys were aiding antiAmerican regimes in Eastern Europe, and that the Soviets were censoring American journalists' reports on the operation of UNRRA.

Although such charges were exaggerated, their underlying contention would increasingly color U.S. foreign aid as the cold war developed. A desire to use foreign aid funds in a more directly political manner than was possible in an international organization prompted the withdrawal of the United States from UNRRA shortly after the war, and shaped the nature of the U.S. European recovery plan (the Marshall plan), point 4, and other subsequent postwar economic and technical aid programs, and the development of Washington's vast peacetime foreign military aid programs as well.

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8 More extensive hearings on the question of extending UNRRA were held by the committee later in the year. See "Committee on Foreign Affairs, Further participation in the work of UNRRA: Hearings on H.R. 4649, 79th Cong., 1st sess., to enable United States to further participate in work of United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, Nov. 14-23, 1945" (Washington, 1945). 'See particularly the introductions in this series to the hearings on the European Recovery Program, Extension of the European Recovery Program, and the Military Defense Assistance Program in volumes III, IV, and V, respectively.

DRAFT AGREEMENT FOR A UNITED NATIONS RELIEF AND REHABILITATION ADMINISTRATION

WEDNESDAY, JULY 7, 1943

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS,

Washington, D.C.

The committee met in executive session at 11 a.m., Hon. Sol Bloom (chairman) presiding.

Chairman BLOOM. The committee will please be in order.

Mrs. Bolton, will you kindly explain to the committee your idea of the purpose of the meeting this morning?

Mrs. BOLTON. The idea is very simply told. It seemed advisable to a group of us that we should have information from the State Department with respect to the history of these agreements on relief and rehabilitation. Mr. Acheson was good enough the other morning to talk to a few of us and he was so clear, and it made such a different picture in our minds when we heard his history of it, that we suggested that this meeting might be held. And so far as I am concerned, Mr. Bloom, I hope very much Mr. Acheson will sort of start with a history of it and give as much of it as he wants to give.

Chairman BLOOM. Mr. Acheson, we should now be pleased to hear from you.

STATEMENT OF HON. DEAN ACHESON, ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF STATE

Mr. ACHESON. Mr. Chairman, I am delighted to go over this proposed United Nations relief and rehabilitation agreement and explain the background of the proposals and why they were made and, as far as I can, all about it. I might go over some of the same ground, if it does not bore you, Mrs. Bolton, that I told you the other day. Chairman BLOOM. Please go over the whole thing.

WAR RELIEF BACKGROUND

Mr. ACHESON. The history of relief in this war begins with the meeting in St. James Palace, at the British Government's call, in September 1941. That was in the very dark days of the war when the exiled governments had fled to London. France had fallen and the situation looked very dark indeed. The British Government made a very gallant gesture by calling at that time a meeting to consider postwar relief and economic problems. It had quite a dramatic effect on

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