Dwight D. Eisenhower: Letter to the President of the Senate and to the Speaker of the House of Representatives Transmitting a Proposed Resolution on Subjugated Peoples.

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14 - Letter to the President of the Senate and to the Speaker of the House of Representatives Transmitting a Proposed Resolution on Subjugated Peoples.
February 20, 1953

Dwight D. Eisenhower
1953

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Dear_____________:

In my message to Congress of February 2, 1953, I stated that I would ask the Congress at a later date to join in an appropriate resolution, making clear that we would never acquiesce in the enslavement of any people in order to purchase fancied gain for ourselves, and that we would not feel that any past agreements committed us to any such enslavement.

In pursuance of that portion of the message to Congress, I now have the honor to inform you that I am concurrently informing the President of the Senate (the Speaker of the House) that I invite the concurrence of the two branches of the Congress in a declaration, in which I would join as President which would:

(1) Refer to World War II international agreements or understandings concerning other peoples;

(2) Point out that the leaders of the Soviet Communist Party who now control Russia, in violation of the clear intent of these agreements or understandings, subjected whole nations concerned to the domination of a totalitarian imperialism;

(3) Point out that such forceful absorption of free peoples into an aggressive despotism increases the threat against the security of all remaining free peoples, including our own;

(4) State that the people of the United States, true to their tradition and heritage of freedom, have never acquiesced in such enslavement of any peoples;

(5) Point out that it is appropriate that the Congress should join with the President to give expression to the desires and hopes of the American people;

(6) Conclude with a declaration that the Senate and the House join with the President in declaring that the United States rejects any interpretations or applications of any international agreements or understandings, made during the course of World War II, which have been perverted to bring about the subjugation of free peoples, and further join in proclaiming the hope that the peoples, who have been subjected to the captivity of Soviet despotism, shall again enjoy the right of self-determination within a framework which will sustain the peace; that they shall again have the right to choose the form of government under which they will live, and that sovereign rights of self-government shall be restored to them all in accordance with the pledge of the Atlantic Charter.

I am enclosing a form of draft resolution, which, in my opinion, carries out the purposes outlined above, and in which I am prepared to concur.

Sincerely,

DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER

Note: This is the text of identical letters addressed to the Honorable Richard M. Nixon, President of the Senate, and to the Honorable Joseph W. Martin, Jr., Speaker of the House of Representatives.

The draft resolution is published in House Document 93 (83d Cong., 1st sess.).

Citation: John T. Woolley and Gerhard Peters, The American Presidency Project [online]. Santa Barbara, CA. Available from World Wide Web: http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=9645.

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