Hale Boggs and the United Europe Movement (1948)
Subject: Hale Boggs and the United Europe Movement (1948)
Date: 17 Jan 1999 00:00:00 GMT
Message-ID: <77tr1r$as1$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com>
Here's something from the Congressional Record showing Hale Boggs'
involvement in 1948 with a United Europe group whose membership
included William Donovan, former head of the OSS, and Allen Dulles,
future head of the CIA.
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Appendix to the Congressional Record 1948 pp A2534-5
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American Committee for a Free and United Europe
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Extension of Remarks of Hon. Hale Boggs of Louisiana
in the House of Representatives
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Tuesday, April 27, 1948
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Mr. Boggs of Louisiana. Mr. Speaker, on Friday, April 23, an
important meeting was held at the New York University Faculty
Club, convened for the purpose of organizing a special
committee to enlist American support for a free and united
Europe.
When Senator William Fulbright, one of the authors of
the Congressional resolution endorsing the principle of
European federation, which I jointly sponsored in the House of
Representatives, serving as its president, and Hon. William C.
Bullitt acting as vice-president, this luncheon meeting laid the
ground work for American support for the forthcoming European
conference on federation.
This meeting, in which members of the parliaments of the
16 Marshall Plan nations will participate, opens in The Hague
on May 7 under the honorary presidency of Winston Churchill, and
will inaugurate work on preparation of a draft of a constitution
for a United States of Europe.
Count Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi, who serves as general
secretary of the European Parliamentary Union, and who has worked
actively for so many years toward the goal of European federation,
predicted that the completion of the constitution will be effected
at the September convention at Interlaken, Switzerland, and
subsequently submitted to the governments of the nations involved.
For many years various groups interested in European union
have contemplate the calling of a constituent assembly for the
purpose of creating such a federation. On March 11 the British
All-party Committee of Members of Parliament of the House of
Commons for Parliamentary European Union forwarded copies of its
approved motion, endorsing creation of a European Council, to the
members of the other western European parliaments, with a
suggestion that similar moves be made on the part of the other free
governments of Europe. It was expressed at this time that all
possible steps should be taken to bring about a federation of
western Europe. This union would be a political one, strong enough
to save European democracy and the values of western civilization.
An emergency policy has been advocated to secure immediate
cooperation between the countries of western Europe, and a long-term
policy designed to bring into being a federation of Europe.
Although steps are being taken by the 16 Marshall Plan nations
to actively work toward western union for the purposes of the
European Recovery Program, leaders of the movement also feel that is
imperative that private and independent activities for the unity
of Europe must be initiated now, if the establishment of such unity
is to be lasting and on a long-term basis.
Such a federation would be constituted with an economic and
political bill of rights, with the prevention of war, the creation
of prosperity, and the insurance of personal liberty as the aims
of the union.
The very fact that these western European nations have already
indicated their willingness to sacrifice sovereign rights to achieve
this federation is encouraging indeed, and I am most hopeful that
the forthcoming conferences to be held in Europe will be supported
by free people everywhere. It can well mean the beginning of a real
United States of Europe.
I would like to include at this point the following two news
clippings giving an account of the recent meeting of the American
Committee for a Free and United Europe, which was held in New York:
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From the New York Times of April 24, 1948
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New Group Backs Federated Europe--Public Officials and
Educators Form Committee to Support "Free" Bloc Abroad
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A special committee formed to enlist support in the United
States for a "free and united Europe" was organized formally
yesterday at the New York University Faculty Club, 22 Washington
Square North, during a luncheon meeting called by Count Richard
Coudenhove-Kalergi, founder of the pan-European movement.
Organized by representative American legislators, public
officials, and educators, the committee has been incorporated
with central headquarters at 120 Broadway. Its objective, according
to Count Coudenhove, will be to cooperate with the movement for
a United States of Europe, to keep the American people informed
about the operations of the projected European federation, and to
develop closer ties with the supervisors of the Marshall plan.
Senator William Fulbright has been named president of the new
organization and William C. Bullitt, former Ambassador to France,
its vice-president.
Board Members Named
The committee's national board. it was said, will include:
Former President Herbert Hoover, Representative Hale Boggs of
Louisiana, former Representative Clare Booth Luce, James A. Farley,
Robert Moses, former Secretary of War Robert B. Patterson,
Mrs. Alice Roosevelt Longsworth, Henry D. Gideonse, president of
Brooklyn College, and Norman Thomas.
Also Dr. Henry Woodburn Chase, chancellor of New York
University; Dr. Stephen Dugan, Gen. William J. Donovan,
Representative Christian A. Herter, the Reverend Robert I. Gannon,
president of Fordham University; Robert L. LaFollete, Jr.,
Allen Dulles, John W. Davis, and George N. Schuster.
Former Senator Burton K. Wheeler, who was a member of the
prewar isolationist wing in Congress, also is listed as a member
of the Committee's national board.
[...]
From the New York Herald Tribune of April 24, 1948
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[more of the same, except that Clayton Fritchey is named
as the second vice-chairman of the executive board.]
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Jerry Shinley
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