Memorandum of Conversation with Secretary of State Dean Acheson, Congressman John W. McCormack, and Others

Return to m Ashanson DEPARTMENT OF STATE 1004 Memorandum of Conversation DATE: April 12, 1949 < 2:30 p.m. SUBJECT: Limited World Government : ARCHIVES SERVICE" RECORDS NATIONAL AND real in S BOVERN R april 19 PARTICIPANTS: The Secretary Laurence Lombard, Congressman John W. McCormack formerly WPB Henry B. Cabot Albert Pratt, formerly Charles A. Coolidge, Fellow of Harvard on staff of Admiral Nimitz John Crider, Editor, Boston Herald Stuart Rand, former Chair- COPIES TO: Michael T. Kelleher, Former President, man, Boston Community Boston Chamber of Commerce Fund Assistant Secretary Allen S PA (for PL, PS) OII - LAL 1-1493 Mr. Henry Cabot, who served as principal spokesman for the group, handed to the Secretary the attached statement on the subject of "Limited World Gov- ernment", signed by 43 residents of Boston and vicinity. The group emphasized that they had no particular plan to propose and were not affiliated with any of the several organizations such as United World Federalists or Union Now. Their principal point, expressed particularly by Mr. Coolidge, was that many intellectuals in the United States, including a number of the younger professors in American universities and college students, believed earnestly that in order to bring about lasting peace, the narrow concepts of nationalism and national sovereignty must be broken down and that the western democracies have no adequate and positive program for progressive action in this direction. Conse- quently, many of them lend a sympathetic ear to the doctrines of the U.S.S.R., in the mistaken belief that the Soviet philosophy is a positive approach to internationalism as opposed to nationalism. Mr. Coolidge and others stressed that all they were asking for was a clear statement that the American Government favored, as an ultimate goal, some kind of limited world government with the surrender of sufficient sovereignty by the various nations in order to permit a world police force strong enough to keep the peace. They expressed the belief that if such a policy were clearly announced, many idealists who now regard the western democracies as static in this matter could be won over from their communist orientation. onlyospy in Geo. allen's office