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Statement by the President Upon Signing Order Terminating the Office of Inter-American Affairs.

April 10, 1946

I HAVE TODAY signed an Executive Order1 transferring corporations of the Office of Inter-American Affairs to the Department of State. The order terminates the Office of Inter-American Affairs, and places those of its functions involving continued cooperation with the other American republics in a regular department of our government.

1 Executive Order 9710 (3 CFR, 1943-1948 Comp. p. 522).

The Office of Inter-American Affairs has made an invaluable contribution to our victory. It has developed a new pattern of international relationships. Its cooperative programs with other American republics, in the fields of health and sanitation, food supply, education, transportation, and hemisphere economic advancement, serve as guides to what can be done by the governments everywhere when they are willing to cooperate in solving problems of mutual interest to their peoples.

As it initiated and developed programs of coordination and cooperation during the war emergency years, the OIAA progressively transferred them to other agencies and departments for their completion or continuation. On August 31, 1945, I signed Executive Order 9608 transferring the information functions of the OIAA to the Department of State. With today's order, the completion of action programs, undertaken by the OIAA through its corporations to implement and perpetuate our Good Neighbor Policy, becomes the responsibility of the Department of State.

Harry S Truman, Statement by the President Upon Signing Order Terminating the Office of Inter-American Affairs. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/232758

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