Reverend Boss. They didn't have faith in a lot of things, but we have had 164 years of this and practice on it. They had a very short time.

Senator BUTLER. In other words, you would let man govern the affairs rather than law, is that your idea?

Reverend Boss. Men always have to govern affairs.

Senator BUTLER. That is true.

Reverend Boss. They can violate laws. They can misuse laws, they can disagree about laws that they have developed, but men in the end have to govern.

Senator BUTLER. That is true. When you have it in the basic law, if they violate the law, they can be called to account for it, and it can be ratified, whereas in the past 10 or 15 years we have not even known of some of these agreements. We have not had opportunity to note. I think they have been very disastrous to this country.

Reverend Boss. There is a political difference there, of course, which has some partisan in it.

Senator BUTLER. Do you believe in secret negotiation and secret treaties? Is that political, is that partisanship?

Reverend Boss. I believe in a close relationship between the congressional bodies of Congress who are responsible for international affairs and the executive branch as I have stated.

Senator BUTLER. Do you believe in the Chief Executive of this country going off to any other country of the world and making a secret agreement where not even a member is left in the State Department, much less the Congress or any other department of the Government who knows the details of the agreement?

Reverend Boss. That is the basis on which our Nation has been operating and is operating. There can be secret agreements, but I believe that any agreement which is to be made, unless it is something that has to be done by an executive assuming responsibility at that moment, ought to be cleared with the appropriate committees of the Congress. Senator MCCARRAN. If it is not cleared by the appropriate committees?

Reverend Boss. We run that risk.

Senator MCCARRAN. That is the reason we are going to try to stop that risk.

Senator BUTLER. In other words, you believe the President of the United States can violate the Constitution any time he wants to de it and just make agreements as he sees fit and as he thinks is best for this country?

Reverend Boss. No, but there is also the possibility of losses to ou country and the insecurity unless we can give to the executive branc] of the Government some responsibility in the matter of agreement made.

Now, the Senate is always able to repudiate such agreements. does not have to make them the law of the land, and it has its right in this matter on the matter of treatymaking; Executives have t assume responsibility at some point.

Senator BUTLER. The Supreme Court has held in the Pink case the are the law of the land and just as binding as a treaty ratified b the United States Senate and they have been binding on domest affairs and have set aside the provisions of the fifth amendment in

sofar as it protects the citizens of this country and of other nations. Do you believe in that kind of diplomacy!

Reverend Boss. It is my understanding that self-executing agreements do not have authority in the country unless legislation is enacted. Senator BUTLER. But the Supreme Court has held otherwise. Reverend Boss. I do not believe the lawyers are agreed on that. Senator BUTLER. The lawyers do not have to agree. The Supreme Court has spoken.

Mr. SMITHEY. Following up the question of Senator Butler with respect to government of laws rather than of men, I take it that you do not agree with the statement which Mr. John W. Davis quoted from Thomas Jefferson in the steel-seizure case to this effect, and I will quote:

In questions of power, let no more be said of confidence in man but bind him :w from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.

Reverend Boss. I think we have to be governed by law, of course, at men have to administer those laws. All I was saying was that er differ in how they should be administered and the effectiveness f it. Of course, I believe in the Constitution and in the rights of mending the Constitution. We have done it many times. We have ne it when we have found weaknesses or when new situations arose at we had to meet. So I would not want to assume that a group f men who happened to be elected at any particular time would vern without law. They have to govern with the law they have. Mr. SMITHEY. Would you agree that nothing should be done when present Secretary of State has been quoted as saying that treaties cut across the rights given the people by their constitutional Bill f Rights? Would you then say they ought to be relegated to the otection of men rather than of laws?

Reverend Boss. Laws always ought to protect men. If they do not rotect men and the Nation, they should be changed. You are rering to John Foster Dulles by the "present Secretary"? Mr. SMITHEY. That is right.

Reverend Boss. He is an international lawyer whom I greatly em, whom I know personally, and whom I have worked with ugh the church groups, and I certainly would not want to present ehnical legal motion in opposition to an international lawyer of stature. I am a layman in this matter and I have to say so. I do want to say in this respect, though, that we have an abiding " in the democratic process provided by our forefathers. We have ng faith that the Chief Executives and the Members of the Senate d by our people possess that loyalty to the interests of the United which is required in the making of treaties for the protection defense of American interests. We therefore do not face the with fear and distrust of our elected leaders such as to require stitutional amendment which would cripple the freedom and ity which has worked so well in the past.

ght insert there that we feel the status of international affairs may require a degree of flexibility which in normal peacetimes Tot seem so important.

ator BUTLER. Why does it require such a flexibility, because we to get around the Constitution?

erend Boss. No, sir.

Senator BUTLER. Then why does it?

Reverend Boss. Because of the rapidity of changing events.

Senator BUTLER. Why should we be the only ones that should be abreast of this rapidity that you speak of and no other nation of the world is caught in that same position?

Reverend Boss. Because in a very real sense that perhaps has never been true before. America has emerged as having to give leadership to the world of free nations.

Senator BUTLER. England had years of leadership for hundreds of years prior to our time and they had no such rapidity.

Reverend Boss. They worked in a period of imperialism. Now we have moved to a free world in which democracy has emerged and is moving to the top and in which imperialisms are dying and in this situation in which crucial American leadership is of utmost importance to the nations of the world.

Senator BUTLER. Don't you believe that the British form of government and the history of the British people has been one of right and liberty and justice under law from its very beginning? You do not believe that?

Reverend Boss. It has been a very excellent Government for the British, but I believe in our own Government and in our own laws and Constitution and for America I think our Government is better suited to our purposes.

Senator BUTLER. Is not our Government almost a complete model of the British Government?

Reverend Boss. Not quite complete. As I have indicated, there are a good many differences, but it is based on the same concept of the respect for human personality, the rights of the individual for basic freedoms, and we owe a great debt to the British people.

Senator BUTLER. And also all men are created with certain inalien able rights that no monarch or president or Congress or any other person can inalienate.

Reverend Boss. That is right. I should say that we ought to observe that very strictly in this day when so much across the worl there are infringements of freedom, and I think we should go th 10th mile, let us say.

Senator BUTLER. That is what this subcommittee, in my opinion is trying to do.

Reverend Boss. I want to say that we believe we should create i the public mind generally the conception that there should be an ex traordinarily close relationship and confidence relationship betwee the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and the Senate Commitee o Foreign Relations and the executive branch of the Government, th President, Secretary of State. If either one goes off apart from th other, it seems to me the Nation loses. Regardless of the partisa politics that may be involved in it, in a day such as we are in nov with changes that occur rapidly, when explosions can happen, whe no one may plan to go in a war and yet we could in the present sta of the world stumble into it, I should think there ought to be th closest integration of working relationships, confidence that wou enable us to move forward with speed and flexibility, with swi decisions, and at the same time with the counsel of these congre sional committees. I think I am looking at it as I say, with the log

of the layman and not with the deep and intelligent understanding of the basis of law.

Senator BUTLER. Would you apply that same philosophy to our domestic affairs and let the Congress and the President disregard the rights of the people under the Constitution to do what they think is expedient and right?

Reverend Boss. They might have to do something in an emergency. Senator BUTLER. Do you sincerely believe that an emergency is an excuse to override the basic rights of the people?

Reverend Boss. No.

Senator BUTLER. Then if you are going to have the Executive and Congress working in close collaboration to do things they cannot do under the Constitution, what else is there?

Reverend Boss. We have a different situation then. For example, you have an explosive situation such as in the Middle East now. Ambassadors may have to act swiftly in a particular situation. If it is a matter of long-term treaty, of course some things may be done, but decisions may have to be reached in a case of that sort that cannot wait for the processes. I think at that point we have to place some confidence in the Executive of the United States and the Department of State. There can be a check upon it.

Senator BUTLER. What would be the check on it, sending our boys in all parts of the world as we have done in Korea? Is that the kind of check you are talking about?

Reverend Boss. No.

Senator BUTLER. What kind of check are you talking about?

Reverend Boss. Of course, decisions had to be made with reference to what the United Nations would do in the East. It did involve the curity not only of other nations, it involved the security of the United States when one even considers the defense basis that run along the whole coast of Asia. It seems to me that action had to be aken by the United Nations at that time or else face a situation which probably would have meant the occupation of a good part of at world.

Senator BUTLER. As a matter of fact, the United Nations did not ove. The President of the United States moved and pulled the Trited Nations after him.

Reverend Boss. There are two ways you can look at that. I am plined myself to lean a little in your direction, but nevertheless you are a very good question, I might say, and I wish I was as well red in the international law so that I could meet you more on that. Senator BUTLER. I am very happy that you are not, because you d probably embarrass me.

Reverend Boss. Some of your questions go into fields of internaal law which I think I am not competent in and I have to say that. The CHAIRMAN. Anything further?

Reverend Boss. I did want to stress again, I think there have been when Executives have perhaps depended too much upon their powers. There have been others where we have been slowed too much. I believe the Nation will view with a great deal of pinterest close-working relationships between its foreign relaand international relations groups and executive officers. ator BUTLER. That sounds beautiful when you read it on that word, but it does not happen practically, and it has not happened tically in this country for many, many years.

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Dirksen?

Senator DIRKSEN. Dr. Boss, you have emphasized the fact that the present treaty provision in the Constitution has served us well for 164 years and you envision no dangers.

Reverend Boss. There are always dangers if mistakes are made in treatymaking.

Senator DIRKSEN. For the sake of the record, I simply want to point out that in the last 164 years we have only had the United Nations with all of its complexities and possibilities for 8 years.

Reverend Boss. That is correct.

Senator DIRKSEN. In the early years when it was formative, it was just getting under way, we could not too well spell out the pattern and see in what direction it was going. Now, of course, we have an organization that ramifies into every field of human endeavor and I think it is fair to say that literally millions of people, and certainly a very substantial number of Senators, see some danger in the potentialities that are there and that, as a matter of fact, real dangers still lie ahead rather than behind us because of that development. Do you have any comment to make on that?

Reverend Boss. It appears to me, however, that all of the arrangements of the United Nations and its covenants and whatever it proposes do have to come to this body for ratification. I do not see how the President of the United States alone can assure the United Nations of the operations of laws until they do become treaties and the United States has entered into them, just as it could not have done under the charter, for example.

Senator DIRKSEN. Secondly, let me ask you this: Do you favor the adoption of the Covenant on Human Rights in substantially the draft form that is before us at the present time?

Reverend Boss. There are, I think, in most of the items-not allwhen you get over into the social and cultural field, if I can leave tha out for a moment and take the civil rights and political rights, I thin! they are so evident a basis in those that rest right back on our own Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights that for a large par of the declaration I am speaking about now-since the covenant has not actually come up yet and I would rather see what it is finally before I would pass upon that in my judgment—but for the declara tion of human rights they pretty nearly incorporated the Declaratio of Independence and certain constitutional items and amendments t the Bill of Rights in the great body of political and civil rights.

I should say for that part of it there ought not to be any hesitanc on the part of the United States. We ought to be very happy that th basic rights adopted and upon which we ourselves have existed an grown have become the fundamental part of it.

Senator DIRKSEN. I just want to intrude one comment at that poin It is so easy, of course, for you in a trenchant moment to disassociat all the cultural and social provisions, but the Senate of the Unite States would not be in a position to do that. It either took the treat and made reservations, or it did not take it.

Reverend Boss. Exactly, and I would say that the Senate of th United States would therefore need to take certain of these articles an determine whether or not reservations were required, and I think the Senate felt they were, then they should make reservations at tho