Editorial Note
In a note of November 21 to the Embassy in the Soviet Union, the Soviet Government protested against Section 101 of the Mutual Security Act of 1951 (Public Law 165, 82d Congress, 1st session, October 10, 1951) which authorized the expenditure of up to $100,000,000 to form escapees from the Soviet Union, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Albania, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, or the communist-dominated or occupied areas of Germany and Austria into “elements of the military forces supporting the North Atlantic Treaty Organization or for other purposes”. The Soviet Government claimed that the legislation was an interference in the internal affairs of other countries and a violation of the undertakings entered into in the Roosevelt–Litvinov exchange of letters of November 16, 1933. For text of the Soviet note, see Department of State Bulletin, December 3, 1951, pages 910–911, or Folliot, Documents on International Affairs, 1951, pages 318–320. [Page 1675] For text of the Mutual Security Act of 1951, see American Foreign Policy: Basic Documents, 1950–1955, volume II, page 3059. For an excerpt from Section 101 of the Act, see Folliot, Documents on International Affairs, 1951, pages 317–318.
Similar protests were made by Hungary and Poland on December 1, by Czechoslovakia on December 7, and by Romania. For the texts of the Hungarian and Polish notes, see Hungarian White Book, pages 312–314 and Polish Documents, pages 190–193, respectively.
In a note of reply delivered to the Soviet Foreign Ministry on December 19, the United States rejected the arguments raised in the Soviet note of November 21.
“The United States Government categorically rejects the Soviet Government’s allegations that the [Mutual Security] Act constitutes interference in the internal affairs of the U.S.S.R. or a violation of the undertakings in the Roosevelt–Litvinov correspondence of November 16, 1933.”
For text of the note of December 19, which was released to the press the following day, see Department of State Bulletin, December 31, 1951, page 1056 or Folliot, Documents on International Affairs, 1951, pages 320–321.
On November 22, the Soviet Union proposed that its allegations against the Mutual Security Act of 1951 be placed on the agenda of the United Nations General Assembly which was then holding its Sixth Session in Paris. A Soviet resolution condemning the Mutual Security Act as an “act of aggression and as interference in the internal affairs of other states” and demanding repeal of the Act by the United States was rejected by the Political and Security Committee of the General Assembly on December 21, by a vote of 39 to 5 with 11 abstentions and was also rejected by the General Assembly itself on January 11, 1952, by a vote of 42 to 5 with 11 abstentions. For documentation on the consideration of the Soviet resolution in the United Nations, see volume II, pages 477 ff.