FOREIGN RELATIONS: To the World

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On the floor of the U.S. Senate last week, Texas' shaggy-maned Tom Connally, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, rose to speak. He had just come from the White House, and he was soon to leave for the World Security conference at San Francisco. With Southern emotion, Tom Connally assured his fellow Senators that he and his seven colleagues on the U.S. delegation would do their utmost to bring back a document which would help preserve peace after World War II.

"We shall not be able perhaps to secure all that we desire," Tom Connally said. "We shall not be able to bring back perfection." But Senator Connally wanted to emphasize two facts: 1) San Francisco will be nonpartisan, so far as the U.S. delegation is concerned; 2) Dumbarton Oaks will be liberalized. Moved by the solemnity of the occasion and of his own words, Tom Connally sat down in tears.

Up rose Michigan's erect and greying Arthur Vandenberg, the Senate's other San Francisco delegate. Arthur Vandenberg is an accomplished and resounding orator. His usual custom is to pile his desk high with green-bound copies of the Congressional Record, lay his carefully prepared manuscript on top, thus leaving his arms free for gestures. Sometimes he has a small lectern brought in. But this time Senator Vandenberg used neither lectern nor notes.

He complimented Tom Connally on his "sturdy statement" and added: "I have no illusions that the San Francisco conference can chart the millennium. Please do not expect it of us. ... But I have faith that we may perfect this charter of peace and justice so that reasonable men of good will shall find in it so much good and so much emancipation for human hopes that all lesser doubts and disagreements may be resolved in its favor. . . ."

The Senators rose in a body and cheered him, as they had Tom Connally. They crossed the aisles and put their arms around the broad shoulders of the two delegates, wishing them well. Majority Leader Alben Barkley, moved by the demonstration, hastily called for adjournment, observing that any other business would be an anticlimax.

The Power. Such was the temper of the U.S. Senate on the eve of the most momentous international gathering since Versailles. That temper breathed reasoned hope and optimism, as it had not done on the eve of Versailles, when rancor and dissension were the order of the day. Like its two delegates, the Senate—which must ratify any charter to come out of San Francisco—did not expect the millennium. But it seemed determined to help achieve some semblance of world order and U.S. adherence thereto, if it was at all possible. That determination was in good part due to a man from Michigan—Arthur Hendrick Vandenberg.

As the conference opened this week, Arthur Vandenberg was unquestionably the most important U.S. delegate present, and perhaps the single most important man. Molotov would loom large because of the power he wields by proxy from the Kremlin; Eden would command consideration as the spokesman and heir apparent of Churchill. But by & large the success of a world security organization would stand or fall on the question of U.S. adherence. And the answer to that question lay with Senator Vandenberg.