VALUE AND EFFECT OF THE ATLANTIC PACT

Wanganui Chronicle, 30 April 1949, Page 5

VALUE AND EFFECT OF THE ATLANTIC PACT

NOT A MOVE AWAY FROM UNITED NATIONS WASHINGTON, April 28 (Reed. 6 pm).—The North Atlantic Pact could not be relied on to attain its goal unless the United States backed it with arms for treaty partners, said the Secretary of Defence, Mr Louis Johnson, today. Testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Mr Johnson said: “The main lack in this great partnership will be materials—materials required for defence.”

Urging Senate approval of the pact, he warned that unless its terms were vigorously implemented its force for peace would be vitiated. Mr Warren Austin, chief United States delegate to the United Nations, said the pact would provide the United States with a shield against Russia's “deliberate and calculated policy of obstruction.” He added that Soviet abuse of the big Power veto had made impossible the United Nations’ function of assuring world peace. In a speech before the American Society of International Law, Dr. Philip Jessup, United States Ambassador at Large to the United Nations, said the North Atlantic Pact was not a move away from international cooperation. “It represents tangible evidence that members of the United Nations are prepared not to let aggression take its course, but to come to the defence of a member who is attacked,” he said. “Such assurance is, I think, a condition which is basis to any substantial further development of international co-operation. It is not a complete answer, but it is a step along the right road."