Remarks at a Meeting with the American Society of Newspaper Editors

Mr. President, and members of this association of editors and publishers:

It is a pleasure to me to see you again. I regret that it was not possible to receive you at the White House. I had hoped you would have been able to come over there. In fact, I thought maybe the weather would clear up and we could have a meeting in the rose garden of the White House, and I would be able to shake hands with each one of you and express my appreciation for what took place last fall. [Laughter]

Two and a half years ago, I had planned rehabilitation of the Presidential offices in the White House for the--one of the rehabilitation plans included an auditorium about the size of this, in which it would be possible for the President to hold press conferences and meetings such as this. But some of our local editors scared the Congress to death and they repealed the appropriation, and I didn't get a new auditorium to entertain you. Nevertheless, since the White House has fallen down, we may be able to get it done yet.

I thought maybe you might be interested to some extent in hearing of the fundamental developments in foreign policy which have taken place since I became President of the United States.

The wars were both going in the Pacific and in the Atlantic on April 12th, when I, resident Roosevelt passed away and I had to assume the duties of President of the United States. The German war finished on May 8th, a month after I took over. And on the 2d of September Japan folded up; and after that it became necessary to try to negotiate a peace in the world that would stand up for generations to come.

All of us thought that every nation in the world was as interested in obtaining a peace that would stand up as we were. It took us a year and a half to find out that that was not the case.

At Potsdam, the atmosphere was as cordial and pleasant as it could possibly be. We negotiated certain settlements of the German problem, and discussed certain approaches in the Japanese Far East problems; and I left there with the idea that we would have no difficulty whatever in attaining a settlement when the war should have been completely won.

And a year and a half after that--nearly a year and a half--we all came to the conclusion that agreements were made by one power for the express purpose of breaking them.

During that period, nearly 30 agreements had been discarded on a unilateral basis, and it became necessary to approach the world's situation from another viewpoint.

We inaugurated in March of 1946 a Greece and Turkey plan, to prevent their being overrun and treated exactly as Romania and Hungary, and Czechoslovakia and Poland had been treated. That was followed by a plan known as the Marshall plan, or European recovery plan, with the idea of replacing the powers in Western Europe in a position where they were economically sound and could to some extent 'protect themselves from aggression. That plan is in the midst of its consummation now, and I think, as Averell Harriman has told me just today, on the road to a successful conclusion.

A short time ago, we negotiated the Atlantic Pact for the protection of the nations which formed that North Atlantic Pact. And now it becomes our duty to see that those nations are amply armed to meet a situation which might arise, if that can be done. And when we are doing that, we are reaching a condition where it will not be necessary for ourselves to expend so much money on armament.

In 1945, in October, I canceled war appropriations amounting to $60 billion. The budget for that year--1945 to 1946--was $103 billions. And $60 billion of that expenditure was canceled by the President of the United States. It was not spent because it was not necessary at that time to expend it, because Japan had folded up and Germany had folded up.

Now, less than one-third of that canceled expenditure will be necessary to implement the peace of the world. The anticipated expenditures for the whole European recovery program and the rearmament program, and what has already been spent in China in the hopes of rehabilitation of the Chinese Government, will not amount to one-third of that canceled appropriation of 1946. That is a peacetime expenditure, not a wartime expenditure. It is being expended in the hope that we will not have to spend a hundred billion dollars a year for 3 years, as we had to do in the time previous to that.

Nobody reminds you of that fact, when discussion is going on as to what is the proper thing for the welfare of the United States and this world!

I felt it my duty to bring to your attention that the expenditures that are being made for peace are in the hope that we won't have to make a war expenditure, and that they have to be made unless we want to begin to prepare for war.

That is the last thing in the world that I want to do, and the last thing in the world that the American people want to do, and the last thing in the world that the majority of the people in the world want to do, no matter what sort of government they may have.

I wish you would inform yourselves completely on these matters. The Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of State are available to discuss these matters with you, and can give you the details if you want them, because they are not secret, they are a part of the foreign policy of the United States, which is a .policy of peace. We went into the United Nations in earnest, and we have endeavored ever since we have been in that organization to make it work, and we shall continue to try to make it work.

I hope you gentlemen will completely inform yourselves on these matters before you come to any conclusion as to what your policy should be with regard to the policy of the United States.

I wish I could take the time to discuss in detail all the ramifications that affect this situation. I could tell you some most interesting things about the happenings in Greece and Turkey, and in the Near East, and in Iran, and in the Indonesian islands, and a number of other things on which you should be fully and completely informed, but time does not allow.

Again I want to apologize to you for not being able to receive you at the White House on account of the weather, and I want to thank you very much for your cordial greeting and for the attention which you have given me.

Mr. Canham: Thank you, Mr. President. This session stands adjourned.

THE PRESIDENT. Thank you very much.