Post-War Years

Executive Agreements in the Post-War Years

Post-war diplomacy of the United States was greatly influenced by the executive agreements entered into at Cairo, Teheran, Yalta, and Potsdam.1 For a period, the formal treaty-the signing of the United Nations Charter and the entry into the multinational defense pacts, like NATO, SEATO, CENTRO, and the like-re-established itself, but soon the executive agreement, as an adjunct of treaty arrangement or solely through presidential initiative, again became the principal instrument of United States foreign policy, so that it became apparent in the 1960s that the Nation was committed in one way or another to assisting over half the countries of the world protect themselves.2 Congressional disquietude did not result in anything more substantial than passage of a “sense of the Senate” resolution expressing a desire that “national commitments” be made more solemnly in the future than in the past.3

Resources

References

This text about Post-War Years is based on “The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation”, published by the U.S. Government Printing Office.

Notes

[Footnote 1] See A Decade of American Foreign Policy, Basic Documents 1941-1949, S. Doc. No. 123, 81st Congress, 1st Sess. (1950), pt. 1.

[Footnote 2] For a congressional attempt to evaluate the extent of such commitments, see United States Security Agreements and Commitments Abroad: Hearings Before a Subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, 91st Congress, 1st Sess. (1969), 10 pts.; see also U.S. Commitments to Foreign Powers: Hearings on S. Res. 151 Before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, 90th Congress, 1st Sess. (1967).

[Footnote 3] The “National Commitments Resolution,” S. Res. 85, 91st Congress, 1st Sess., passed by the Senate June 25, 1969. See also S. REP. NO. 797, 90th Congress, 1st sess. (1967). See the discussion of these years in CRS study, supra at 169-202.