Part 18 (1/2)
”The parties will contribute toward the future development of peaceful and friendly international relations by strengthening their free inst.i.tutions, by bringing about a better understanding of the principles upon which these inst.i.tutions are founded, and by promoting conditions of stability and _well being_. They will seek to eliminate conflict in their international economic policies and will encourage economic collaboration between any or all of them.”
Here in this ”military” treaty, which re-affirms the partic.i.p.ants'
”faith in the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations,” is the legal basis for a union, an Atlantic Union, a _supra_-national government, all under the United Nations.
Immediately upon the formation of NATO, Clarence K. Streit created (in 1949) the Atlantic Union Committee, Inc. Strait's old Federal Union was permitted to become virtually defunct (although it technically still exists, as publisher of Streit's books, and so on). Streit got federal tax exemption for the Atlantic Union Committee by writing into its charter a proviso that the organisation would not ”attempt to influence legislation by propaganda or otherwise.”
Yet, the charter of AUC states its purposes as follows:
”To promote support for congressional action requesting the President of the United States to invite the other democracies which sponsored the North Atlantic Treaty to name delegates, representing their princ.i.p.al political parties, to meet with delegates of the United States in a federal convention to explore how far their peoples, and the peoples of such other democracies as the convention may invite to send delegates, can apply among them, within the framework of the United Nations, the principles of free federal union.”
An Atlantic Union Committee Resolution, providing for the calling of an international convention to ”explore” steps toward a limited world government, was actually introduced in the Congress in 1949--with the support of a frightful number of ”liberals” then in the Congress.
The Resolution did not come to a vote in the 81st Congress (1949-1950).
Estes Kefauver (Democrat, Tennessee) gravitated to the leaders.h.i.+p in pus.h.i.+ng for the Resolution in subsequent Congresses; and he had the support of the top leaders.h.i.+p of both parties, Republican and Democrat, north and south--including people like Richard Nixon, William Fulbright, Lister Hill, Hubert Humphrey, Mike Mansfield, Kenneth Keating, Jacob Javits, Christian Herter, and so on.
From 1949 to 1959, the Atlantic Union Resolution was introduced in each Congress--except the one Republican-controlled Congress (83rd--1953).
In 1959, Atlantic Union advocates, having got nowhere in ten years of trying to push their Resolution through Congress, changed tactics. In 1959, Streit's Atlantic Union Committee published a pamphlet ent.i.tled, _Our One Best Hope--For Us--For The United Nations--For All Mankind_, recommending an ”action” program to ”strengthen the UN.” This ”action”
program asks the U.S. Congress to pa.s.s a Resolution calling for an international convention which would accomplish certain ”fundamental objectives,” to wit:
”That only reasonably experienced democracies be asked to partic.i.p.ate; and that the number asked to partic.i.p.ate should be small enough to enhance the chance for early agreement, yet large enough to create, if united, a preponderance of power on the side of freedom.
”That the delegates be officially appointed but that they be uninstructed by their governments so that they shall be free to act in accordance with their own individual consciences.
”That, whatever the phraseology, it should not be such as to preclude any proposal which, in the wisdom of the convention, is the most practical step.
”That the findings of the delegates could be only recommendations, later to be accepted or rejected by their legislatures and their fellow citizens.”
The NATO Citizens Commission Law of 1960 fully carries out the purposes and intent of the new Atlantic Union strategy fabricated in 1959 to replace the old Resolution which had failed for ten years.
The roll-call vote on this law (published in the February 27, 1961, issue of _The Dan Smoot Report_) shows what a powerful array of United States Congressmen and Senators are for this step toward world government.
The debates in House and Senate (Senate: _Congressional Record_, June 15, 1960, pp. 11724 _ff_; House: _Congressional Record_, August 24, 1960, pp. 16261 _ff_) show something even more significant.
While denying that the NATO Citizens Commission Law had any relation to the old Atlantic Union Resolution which Congress had refused for ten years to consider, ”liberals” in both Senate and House used language right out of the Atlantic Union Committee pamphlet of 1959 (_Our Best Hope ..._) to ”prove” that this NATO Citizens Commission proposal was not dangerous: They argued, for example, that Commission members would be free to act in accordance with their own individual consciences; that the meetings of the Commission would be purely exploratory, and that Commission findings would be ”only recommendations,” not binding on the U.S. government.
Congressional ”liberals” supporting the NATO Citizens Commission also tried to establish the respectability of the Commission by arguing that it was merely being created to explore means of implementing Article 2 of the NATO Treaty. Are these ”liberal” congressmen and senators so ignorant that they do not know the whole Atlantic Union movement is built under the canopy of ”implementing Article 2 of this NATO Treaty?”
Or, are they too stupid to understand this? Or, are they so dishonest that they distort the facts, thinking that the public is too confused or ignorant to discover the truth?
Although the liberals in Congress loudly denied that the NATO Citizens Commission Law of 1960 had anything to do with Atlantic Union, Clarence Streit knew better--or was more honest. As soon as the law was pa.s.sed, Streit began a hasty revision of his old _Union Now_. Early in 1961, Harper & Brothers published the revision, under the t.i.tle _Freedom's Frontier Atlantic Union Now_.
In this new book, Streit expresses jubilation about the NATO Citizens Commission Law; and, on the second page of the first chapter, he says:
”One change in the picture, which has seemed too slight or too recent to be noted yet by the general public, seems to me so significant as to give in itself reason enough for new faith in freedom's future, and for this new effort to advance it. On September 7, 1960, President Eisenhower signed an act of Congress authorizing a United States Citizens Commission on NATO to organize and partic.i.p.ate in a Convention of Citizens of North Atlantic Democracies with a view to exploring fully and recommending concretely how to unite their peoples better.”