Declassified per Executive Order 13526, Section 3.3
NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011
TOP SECRET – Sensitive
- unity in Europe...This development deserves our full support. I am confident the United States will, by appropriate means, extend to the free nations the support which the situation requires..."7
- c. ERP and NATO, 1948–1949
On 1 April, 1948, the Soviets initiated the blockade of Berlin. In late April, the President called a conference of his senior advisers to consider the Soviet threat, as well as the possibility of communist fomented uprisings in France and Italy. John Foster Dulles, then State Department consultant, later reported that the conferees agreed that:
- "...Only a decisive pronouncement by the United States would check the fear that was inspired by Moscow...[and that the U.S. should] proceed along the lines of a North Atlantic regional pact..."
Dulles also stated that Senator Vandenberg:
- "...Felt that the Senate liked the idea of regional associations and would be disposed to approve in principle a further developing of such associations for collective defense."8
In May, 1948, Senator Vandenberg introduced a resolution adopted by the Senate on June 11, 1948, by a vote of 64 to 4, advising the Executive to undertake the:
- "...Progressive development of regional and other collective arrangements for individual and collective self-defense in accordance with the purposes, principles, and provisions of the Charter [of the UN] association of the United States, by constitutional process, with such regional and other collective arrangements as are based on continuous and effective self-help and mutual aid, and as affect its national security."
The Department of State later explained to Congress that "the contents of this resolution...became our guide in the discussion and subsequent negotiations which led to the North Atlantic Pact."10
In June, 1948, Congress also passed the Economic Cooperation Act, establishing the Economic Cooperation Administration (ECA) to administer a program of foreign aid. The following month, armed with the Economic Cooperation Act and the Vandenberg Resolution, the U.S. opened exploratory talks on an alliance with the Brussels Pact members and Canada. Subsequently, the talks were broadened to include twelve nations. On April 4, 1949, the North Atlantic Treaty was signed, and in late July ratified by the Senate. It entered into force August 24, 1949.
