Friday, September 14, 2012

Politics Stops At The Water's Edge

At least that's what Republican Senator, Arthur Vandenberg of Michigan said in 1947. It was early in the Cold War, and Vandenberg had renounced isolationism and had become chair of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee. He played a helpful role in forging bipartisan support for the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan and NATO.

A few years earlier, the 1940 Republican candidate for president, Wendell Willkie, assisted President Roosevelt by supporting Lend-Lease and other Roosevelt programs supporting internationalism and Civil Rights.

 It is a truism, especially in international relations, that we only have one president at a time. An earlier generation understood that.

No comments: