Profiles in Character #25: Arthur Vandenberg Exemplifies Bipartisanship
On January 10, 1945, Michigan Republican Senator Arthur Vandenberg rose in the Senate chamber and delivered what was soon called “the speech heard round the world.” A pre-war advocate of isolationism, Vandenberg proclaimed in a thirty-minute address that World War II’s “gory science of mass murder” meant that America could no longer, as it had historically done, retreat from world responsibility. "I do not believe," he said, "that any nation hereafter can immunize itself by its own exclusive action."
From that moment forward, Presidents Roosevelt and then Truman were immeasurably strengthened in achieving what would become the United Nations, the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan and the creation of NATO, all with Vandenberg’s full support. This post-war architecture owes much to Vandenberg’s announcement that day that "I felt that things were drifting . . . Somebody had to say something, and I felt it could be more effectively said by a member of the opposition."
FDR appointed Vandenberg to the organizing conference for the UN in April 1945 and Truman appointed him as a delegate to the UN General Assembly in 1946. But that was just the beginning.
Vandenberg became chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1947, after mid-term elections swept Republicans into power in both houses of Congress. From that perch, he would work across the aisle to forge the bipartisanship he had called for on that January day:
“To me, "bipartisan foreign policy" means a mutual effort, under our indispensable two-party system, to unite our official voice at the water's edge so that America speaks with maximum authority against those who would divide and conquer us and the free world.”
Shortened by history to “politics stops at the water’s edge,” Vandenberg’s first big test was how to lead America to support European recovery in what became the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan. The former - $400 million in military and economic aid to Greece and Turkey in 1946 - was the forerunner to the much more substantial $13.2 billion for 16 Western European nations to strengthen their resolve and ability to avoid Soviet domination.
On June 5, 1947, Secretary of State George C. Marshall gave a speech at Harvard which jump-started what became the Marshall Plan. The speech was the easy part. Getting Truman’s European Recovery Program through Congress was much harder. Having already given billions in food aid to war-torn Europe and coming out of war and the Great Depression, Americans were looking inward. Prominent voices in Congress were initially opposed.
Beginning the week after the Harvard speech, Marshall and Vandenberg met at Blair House to begin discussing strategy. These meeting would continue, often twice a week, in the ensuing months. Vandenberg’s advice would prove crucial in nailing down Republican votes. He recommended the formation of a “bipartisan advisory council” to determine if the plan would damage the U.S. economy. He asked the Brookings Institution to provide advice on the plan and how it should be administered. He counseled the Truman Administration on how to work with the Republican Congress.
Vandenberg also set his own political ambitions aside. He was assumed to be a contender for the presidency in 1948. Realizing that getting the Marshall Plan through Congress might be hindered if he was viewed as trying to advance his own candidacy, he told Michigan’s governor and Republican leaders on January 1 that he would not run and asked them to stop promoting his candidacy.
He then orchestrated the Foreign Relations Committee hearings which led to a 13-0 vote to advance the program to the full Senate and, on March 1, 1948 he opened debate on the European Cooperation Act with stirring words that the program was in “American intelligent self-interest” and that it would be “a welcome beacon in the world’s dark night . . . a turning point in history for 100 years to come.”
The act would pass the Senate on March 14 on a 69-17 vote and the House on March 31, 329-74.
While George Marshall got the lion’s share of history’s credit for the Marshall Plan, he regularly celebrated Vandenberg’s major contributions. Marshall called Vandenberg’s Senate speech a “masterpiece,” having previously called the senator “my right-hand man” and “full partner.” “He was just the whole show” when it came to getting the act through Congress and ensuring its funding, Marshall would recall.
Vandenberg wasn’t done. He successfully prevented cutting Marshall Plan funding with a fiery Senate Appropriations Committee speech and secured passage in June 1948 of a senate resolution (called the “Vandenberg Resolution”) that paved the way for NATO. The Senate was wary of a treaty that might take the decision to use military force out of Congressional hands. Vandenberg worked with the State Department on wording that met the needs of European allies, the White House and the Senate, which ratified the NATO treaty on June 21, 1949 with a vote of 83-19.
In 2004, fifty-three years after his death in 1951, a portrait of Vandenberg became just the sixth added to “the greatest senators of all time” in the Senate Reception Room.
Photo Credit: wikipedia.org
