Letter from Leland B. Henry to President Harry S. Truman

Commission on Christian Social Relations of the Diocese of New York 416 Lafayotte Street New York GRamerey Jt The Community Industrial Relations Diocesan House The Rev. Leland B. Henry Executive Director Race Relations Social Action 1047 Amsterdam Avenue, New York 25, New York World Responsibility MOnument 2-3100 January 31, 1950 Hon. Harry S. Truman The President of the United States The White House Washington, D.C. Dear Mr. President: I am writing you with reference to the international situation high-lighted by the current discussion of the hydrogen bomb. For purposes of identification may I say that I do not write as a pacifist or as an appeaser of Russia. I served as an in- fantryman in the Fourth Division of the Regular Army in World War I and as a Chaplain in World War II. I vigorously supported the Marshall Plan and the North Atlantic Treaty, and I am a member of the National Board of the Atlantic Union Committee. In common with Justice Roberts, Mr. Patterson, Mr. Clayton, Mr. Urey and other members of the Atlantic Union Committee, I believe that freedom is, and must continue to be, the goal of American policy, and that it cannot be achieved by appease- ment. TRUMAN NATIONAL LISHINGT Having made my general position clear, may I respect- RECORDS fully urge you to make one more effort to achieve an agreement with GOVERNMENT the United States of Soviet Russia on the whole question of atomic energy before authorizing the making of the hydrogen bomb? Discussions in the United Nations have been so fruitless that further effort at that level would obvicusly be a waste of time. Discussion through ordinary diplomatic channels is open to the objection that we must not conduct bi-lateral negotiations in a matter affecting the whole world. Discussion on the Cabinet level, including the Secretaries of State for Foreign Affairs of all the major powers would be possible, but not too promising.