868.00/5–947
Memorandum by the Acting Legislative Counsel (Sandifer) to the Secretary of State
The Greek-Turkish Bill in the House passed about 6:30 Friday evening by a vote of 287 to 107.1 All attempts to amend the bill were defeated. A slight change in language of a Committee amendment of Section 3 was accepted.
During the debate the following important points were made:
[Here follow four numbered paragraphs on the House debate.]
Representative Bender of Ohio and Smith of Wisconsin led the opposition to the Greek-Turkish legislation. They both submitted a number of amendments, all of which were rejected.
Most interesting of the amendments rejected was one proposed by Representative Judd which would have written into the act a provision making it clear that the United States was not to send troops to Greece or Turkey to serve either as occupation or combat troops. Mr. Mundt of South Dakota and Representatives Eaton and Bloom agreed to accept this proposal. It was defeated by a teller vote of 70 to 122. The proposed amendment grew out of a discussion as to whether language should be inserted to spell out the “limited” number of military personnel which could be sent to Greece and Turkey.
An amendment by Senator Smith to limit the funds available to $200,000,000 instead of $400,000,000 was defeated by a vote of 49 to 121.
An amendment which would have sent the matter to the United Nations for sixty days before the United States could take action suffered a similar defeat.
An amendment by Mrs. Douglas which would have required the Greek Government to grant amnesty to political prisoners and to hold an election within one year was defeated by a voice vote. A similar setback was suffered by Representative Mansfield who sought to oblige the Greek Government to review its tax scheme program.
- The Greek-Turkish aid bill bad been approved by the Senate on April 22 by a vote of 67 to 23.↩