AMERICAN DENIAL OF BACKSLIDING ON ATLANTIC PACT

Grey River Argus, 18 February 1949, Page 5

AMERICAN DENIAL OF BACKSLIDING ON ATLANTIC PACT

(Rec. 9.15) WASHINGTON, Feb. 16 There had been no change in the United States attitude towards the proposed North Atlantic Pact, the Secretary of State, Mr Dean Acheson, toid a press conference to-day. He had been asked to comment on European and other charges that the United States was “welshing” on commitments envisaged in the pact.

Mr Acheson said: “We have been proceeding on the basis of policies which have been clearly defined, and which, I think, are well understood.” He added that these policies were contained in President Truman’s recent Inaugural Address, also in the Vandenberg Resolution, and in a resolution passed in 1948 by the House of Foreign Affairs Committee. President Truman, in his inaugural speech, supported the principle of collective defence pacts and said that the best deterrent to aggression was “a certaintv that immediate and effective counter-measures will be taken against those who violate peace.” ' „ , x . .. , The Vandenberg Resolution, which the Senate passed in 1948. favoured the United States participating m collective defence pacts, but it stipulated that American military commitments must be “in accordance with constitutional processes.’ The House of Foreign Affairs Committee’s resolution called for the strengthening of the United Nations through a collective defence pact that would be in keeping with both the United States’s Constitution and the United Nations’ Charter.