Leo Pasvolsky
Encyclopedia
Leo Pasvolsky was a journalist, economist, state department official and personal assistant to Secretary of State
Cordell Hull
. He was one of the United States government's main planners for the post World War II
world and "probably the foremost author of the UN Charter." Thomas Connally said in his memoirs "Certainly he had more to do with writing the framework of the charter than anyone else."
His New York Times obituary is subtitled "Wrote Charter of World Organization."
A short, rotund, mustachioed pipe smoker with a very large and round head, he joked that he might find it easier to roll than to walk. An aide compared him to the third little pig in the Three Little Pigs
, Hull called him "Friar Tuck
." A hardworking "one-man think tank" for Hull, he preferred to stay invisible, in the background. In the words of Richard Holbrooke
, he " was one of those figures peculiar to Washington -- a tenacious bureaucrat who, fixed on a single goal, left behind a huge legacy while virtually disappearing from history."
in the Russian Empire
in 1893. His parents were anti-czarists and the family fled to the United States in 1905. After graduating from the City College of New York
in 1916 he studied political science at Columbia University
and also attended the University of Geneva
. He then edited periodicals, the monthly The Russian Review and Amerikansky Viestnik, and the daily newspaper Russkoye Slovo . Engaged in the tempestuous political climate of the emigres in New York, he debated Leon Trotsky
during his visit to New York in 1916. He was at first optimistic about the Russian Revolution, and worked as the secretary of Boris Bakhmeteff
, the last Ambassador to the US of the Kerensky government, but became embittered and anti-communist after Lenin's October Revolution
.
In 1919 he covered the Paris Peace Conference
for the New York Tribune
, the Brooklyn Eagle
and other newspapers, and in 1921 he covered the Washington Arms Conference for the Baltimore Sun. During this period he became a Wilsonian internationalist and softened his stance toward the Soviet Union
, arguing for its recognition
by the US and its admission into the League of Nations
.
, from which he received a Ph. D. in 1936, and which was his institutional base until his death in 1953. In November 1926, he married Clara Christine McCormick of Pittsburgh.
In his writings in the 20s, he argued that the Soviet Union's 1918-1921 war communism
was an ideologically based attempt to realize Marx's vision of socialism or communism, rather than a short-term wartime expedient with no lasting significance. Pasvolsky's book on Bulgaria and others from this period are still regarded as useful surveys by specialists.
as his personal assistant but returned to Brookings after two years. Later he worked in the Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce of the Department of Commerce (1934-35) and in the Division of Trade Agreements 1935-36 and later in various capacities in the State Department from 1935 to 1946. During the 30s and 40s, frequently with Harold G. Moulton,. his closest ally and collaborator since the 1920's at Brookings, he envisioned a stable, open world economy based on international political cooperation involving a successor to the League of Nations, wider than an alliance of democracies, and with international police powers. Earlier Brookings studies of the 20s and 30s focused on the importance of worldwide demand to the American economy, but by 1941 Paslovsky and Moulton underscored the ever growing dependence of the American economy on foreign raw materials binding the US more tightly to the world economy. "Even before America entered the war, Pasvolsky was thinking about the postwar world. He joined the Council on Foreign Relations
in 1938. Along with Norman Davis
, Pasvolsky, nicknamed "Pazzy" by some council members, became the main liaison between the Council and the State Department, and regularly attended the Council's Economic and Financial Group meetings in New York.
As Hull's assistant, he was on the same level as the six assistant secretaries of state.
In September 1939, Hull assigned Pasvolsky to planning for the postwar peace, and at Pasvolsky's suggestion, set up the Advisory Committee on Problems of Foreign Relations
. After this became moribund, Hull appointed Pasvolsky the first director of the State Department
's new Division of Special Research
in February, 1941. During 1942 diplomat Charles Woodruff Yost
served as Assistant Chief. The two would work together at the Dumbarton Oaks conference, drafting the UN Charter. When the division was split in January 1943 into a Division of Political Studies and a Division of Economic Studies, Pasvolsky continued to supervise them. He was executive officer of the secretive Advisory Committee on Postwar Foreign Policy, which superseded the Division, returning to the broadly based Advisory Committee concept.
, based on the design of the League of Nations
. Pasvolsky and Hull eventually opposed Welles' draft as being too hastily written. The major split was over whether the organization would have a "regional" nature, perhaps with local councils, in which each great power would have most of the responsiblity for its region, or would have more centralized structure. Welles, as well as Winston Churchill
(and later, Nelson Rockefeller
) favored "regionalism," while Pasvolsky and Hull favored a unitary global body. Roosevelt wavered between the two sides.
Throughout 1942, Welles took the lead on planning for the UN and in January 1943 discussed a new and full draft charter with Roosevelt. It incorporated Roosevelt's four power "global policemen" but gave them less than absolute veto powers on an Executive Council with "regional" members too. Welles continued to work on the draft, but after a period of political infighting with Hull, he was forced to resign in August 1943. Subsequently Hull took charge of UN planning, and appointed Pasvolsky to put together a draft charter, which he produced in August. It retained the Security Council, General Assembly and Secretariat, which Welles and Pasvolsky had agreed on, but downplayed regionalism. With the absence of Welles or any other figure with comparable influence, interest and expertise Pasvolsky's ideas and phrasing dominated the drafting henceforward. Before Hull departed for the Moscow Conference (1943)
, Pasvolsky advised him that economic reconstruction, especially in the USSR, should be a prioritized, while Bowman insisted on territorial agreements restricting Soviet expansion. By February 3, 1944, Roosevelt had approved Pasvolsky's latest draft. It incorporated two major departures "that modulated at least the naked appearance of Big Four dominance". Unlike the League of Nations, it entrusted security matters exclusively to the Security Council. However, it widened the Security Council into an 11 member entity, reducing the dominance of the four big powers that Roosevelt had long envisioned.
In 1943 Pasvolsky was placed in charge of International Organization and Security Affairs in the State Department with responsibility for drafting the United Nations Charter; he was present at Bretton Woods
and Dumbarton Oaks
. He became chairman of the Coordination Committee at the San Francisco United Nations Conference on International Organization
, where the charter was negotiated and signed. Secretary Hull depended heavily on Pasvolsky to explain the plans and proposals for the UN to President Roosevelt. Craufurd Goodwin writes "It is striking how close a resemblance Pasvolsky's statement of objectives for the new international organization bears to the positions he had taken with Moulton throughout the previous decade."
Another important innovation at Dumbarton Oaks was the Economic and Social Council
. Pasvolsky and Stettinius managed to persuade Roosevelt to drop his idea of adding Brazil as a sixth member of the Security Council. Pasvolsky opposed an absolute veto by permanent members on all Security Council discussions and resolutions as giving these big states too much power, while Hull and the Soviets supported it. His persistence on this issue persuaded Hull and eventually the Soviets to limit the veto to substantive matters only - not allowing it on procedural ones including discussions.
, also worked on plans for postwar reconstruction and political and economic arrangements and collaborated closely with the Advisory Committee. Toynbee and Pasvolsky "met on many occasions to discuss in detail ideas about the shape of a world order under Anglo-Saxon leadership."
Pasvolsky, reflecting the thought of the State Department, the British, led by Lord Keynes
and even the Soviets, envisioned the "eventual integration of Germany into the world economy." This lenience towards Germany in a 1944 State department memorandum by Pasvolsky inspired Treasury Secretary Morgenthau
's opposed Morgenthau plan
, but while the Morgenthau plan won tentative approval, the more lenient policies were eventually carried out. Similarly, Pasvolsky, concerned about the strain on occupation forces, favored not insisting on the removal of the Japanese emperor, opposing Dean Acheson
and Archibald MacLeish
In 1946–53 he was director of international studies at the Brookings Institution, and a the time of his death, he was working on a study of the origin and history of the United Nations. He died of a heart attack on May 5, 1953 in Washington, DC, survived by his wife Christine McCormick Pasvolsky, two sisters and two brothers.His incomplete manuscript on the history of the UN was the basis of his assistant Ruth Russell's 1961 History of the United Nations Charter, the standard work on the subject.
, one of the leading advisers of the State Department, took an instant dislike to Pasvolsky. Bowman, Welles and Pasvolsky engaged in a power struggle over the direction of the Advisory Committee in late 1942. Bowman's differences with Pasvolsky erupted at San Francisco, where he wrote that he was "dangerous to American interests" and that it was "a mistake to put one man with his background into a key position." Pasvolsky resented Bowman equally, and wrote him out of subsequent histories of the UN's founding.
Some considered Pasvolsky's Brookings ideas for the world's economic problems simple-minded. Dean Acheson
referred disparagingly to the "Hull-Pasvolsky establishment" and wrote that "Leo Pasvolsky was Mr. Hull's principal speech writer. Or one might say, he wrote Mr. Hull's principal speech: for whatever the occasion or title, the speech was apt to turn into a dissertation on the benefits of unhampered international trade and the true road to it through agreements reducing tarriffs." Acheson belittled Pasvolsky's postwar planning:
In a 1967 letter, Acheson criticized American moralism in international affairs, which he saw as culminating in "that little rat Leo Pasvolsky's United Nations."
United States Secretary of State
The United States Secretary of State is the head of the United States Department of State, concerned with foreign affairs. The Secretary is a member of the Cabinet and the highest-ranking cabinet secretary both in line of succession and order of precedence...
Cordell Hull
Cordell Hull
Cordell Hull was an American politician from the U.S. state of Tennessee. He is best known as the longest-serving Secretary of State, holding the position for 11 years in the administration of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt during much of World War II...
. He was one of the United States government's main planners for the post World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
world and "probably the foremost author of the UN Charter." Thomas Connally said in his memoirs "Certainly he had more to do with writing the framework of the charter than anyone else."
His New York Times obituary is subtitled "Wrote Charter of World Organization."
A short, rotund, mustachioed pipe smoker with a very large and round head, he joked that he might find it easier to roll than to walk. An aide compared him to the third little pig in the Three Little Pigs
Three Little Pigs
Three Little Pigs is a fairy tale featuring anthropomorphic animals. Printed versions date back to the 1840s, but the story itself is thought to be much older...
, Hull called him "Friar Tuck
Friar Tuck
Friar Tuck is a companion to Robin Hood in the legends about that character. He is a common character in modern Robin Hood stories, which depict him as a jovial friar and one of Robin's Merry Men. The figure of Tuck was common in the May Games festivals of England and Scotland during the 15th...
." A hardworking "one-man think tank" for Hull, he preferred to stay invisible, in the background. In the words of Richard Holbrooke
Richard Holbrooke
Richard Charles Albert Holbrooke was an American diplomat, magazine editor, author, professor, Peace Corps official, and investment banker....
, he " was one of those figures peculiar to Washington -- a tenacious bureaucrat who, fixed on a single goal, left behind a huge legacy while virtually disappearing from history."
Early life
Pasvolsky was born in PavlogradPavlohrad
Pavlohrad or Pavlograd is an indistrial city in eastern Ukraine, located within the Dnipropetrovs'ka oblast, and had a population of 118,800 in 2001. The rivers of Vovcha , Hnizdka , Kocherha flow through Pavlohrad. The area of the city is . There are 20 schools and 1 lyceum in the city.In 1930...
in the Russian Empire
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
in 1893. His parents were anti-czarists and the family fled to the United States in 1905. After graduating from the City College of New York
City College of New York
The City College of the City University of New York is a senior college of the City University of New York , in New York City. It is also the oldest of the City University's twenty-three institutions of higher learning...
in 1916 he studied political science at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
and also attended the University of Geneva
University of Geneva
The University of Geneva is a public research university located in Geneva, Switzerland.It was founded in 1559 by John Calvin, as a theological seminary and law school. It remained focused on theology until the 17th century, when it became a center for Enlightenment scholarship. In 1873, it...
. He then edited periodicals, the monthly The Russian Review and Amerikansky Viestnik, and the daily newspaper Russkoye Slovo . Engaged in the tempestuous political climate of the emigres in New York, he debated Leon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky , born Lev Davidovich Bronshtein, was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and theorist, Soviet politician, and the founder and first leader of the Red Army....
during his visit to New York in 1916. He was at first optimistic about the Russian Revolution, and worked as the secretary of Boris Bakhmeteff
Boris Bakhmeteff
Boris Alexandrovich Bakhmeteff was an engineer, businessman, professor of Civil Engineering at Columbia University and the only ambassador of the Russian Provisional Government to the United States. He was unrelated to his predecessor as ambassador, George Bakhmeteff. His wife Helen died in 1921...
, the last Ambassador to the US of the Kerensky government, but became embittered and anti-communist after Lenin's October Revolution
October Revolution
The October Revolution , also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution , Red October, the October Uprising or the Bolshevik Revolution, was a political revolution and a part of the Russian Revolution of 1917...
.
In 1919 he covered the Paris Peace Conference
Paris Peace Conference, 1919
The Paris Peace Conference was the meeting of the Allied victors following the end of World War I to set the peace terms for the defeated Central Powers following the armistices of 1918. It took place in Paris in 1919 and involved diplomats from more than 32 countries and nationalities...
for the New York Tribune
New York Tribune
The New York Tribune was an American newspaper, first established by Horace Greeley in 1841, which was long considered one of the leading newspapers in the United States...
, the Brooklyn Eagle
Brooklyn Eagle
The Brooklyn Daily Bulletin began publishing when the original Eagle folded in 1955. In 1996 it merged with a newly revived Brooklyn Daily Eagle, and now publishes a morning paper five days a week under the Brooklyn Daily Eagle name...
and other newspapers, and in 1921 he covered the Washington Arms Conference for the Baltimore Sun. During this period he became a Wilsonian internationalist and softened his stance toward the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
, arguing for its recognition
Diplomatic recognition
Diplomatic recognition in international law is a unilateral political act with domestic and international legal consequences, whereby a state acknowledges an act or status of another state or government in control of a state...
by the US and its admission into the League of Nations
League of Nations
The League of Nations was an intergovernmental organization founded as a result of the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War. It was the first permanent international organization whose principal mission was to maintain world peace...
.
Brookings
In 1922 he became an economist on the staff of the Brookings InstitutionBrookings Institution
The Brookings Institution is a nonprofit public policy organization based in Washington, D.C., in the United States. One of Washington's oldest think tanks, Brookings conducts research and education in the social sciences, primarily in economics, metropolitan policy, governance, foreign policy, and...
, from which he received a Ph. D. in 1936, and which was his institutional base until his death in 1953. In November 1926, he married Clara Christine McCormick of Pittsburgh.
In his writings in the 20s, he argued that the Soviet Union's 1918-1921 war communism
War communism
War communism or military communism was the economic and political system that existed in Soviet Russia during the Russian Civil War, from 1918 to 1921...
was an ideologically based attempt to realize Marx's vision of socialism or communism, rather than a short-term wartime expedient with no lasting significance. Pasvolsky's book on Bulgaria and others from this period are still regarded as useful surveys by specialists.
Bureaucrat
Early in the first Roosevelt administration, he was hired by Cordell HullCordell Hull
Cordell Hull was an American politician from the U.S. state of Tennessee. He is best known as the longest-serving Secretary of State, holding the position for 11 years in the administration of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt during much of World War II...
as his personal assistant but returned to Brookings after two years. Later he worked in the Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce of the Department of Commerce (1934-35) and in the Division of Trade Agreements 1935-36 and later in various capacities in the State Department from 1935 to 1946. During the 30s and 40s, frequently with Harold G. Moulton,. his closest ally and collaborator since the 1920's at Brookings, he envisioned a stable, open world economy based on international political cooperation involving a successor to the League of Nations, wider than an alliance of democracies, and with international police powers. Earlier Brookings studies of the 20s and 30s focused on the importance of worldwide demand to the American economy, but by 1941 Paslovsky and Moulton underscored the ever growing dependence of the American economy on foreign raw materials binding the US more tightly to the world economy. "Even before America entered the war, Pasvolsky was thinking about the postwar world. He joined the Council on Foreign Relations
Council on Foreign Relations
The Council on Foreign Relations is an American nonprofit nonpartisan membership organization, publisher, and think tank specializing in U.S. foreign policy and international affairs...
in 1938. Along with Norman Davis
Norman Davis
Norman H. Davis , was a U.S. diplomat. He was born in Bedford, Tennessee. He served as President Wilson's Assistant Secretary of Treasury and later as Undersecretary of State....
, Pasvolsky, nicknamed "Pazzy" by some council members, became the main liaison between the Council and the State Department, and regularly attended the Council's Economic and Financial Group meetings in New York.
As Hull's assistant, he was on the same level as the six assistant secretaries of state.
In September 1939, Hull assigned Pasvolsky to planning for the postwar peace, and at Pasvolsky's suggestion, set up the Advisory Committee on Problems of Foreign Relations
Advisory Committee on Problems of Foreign Relations
The Advisory Committee on Problems of Foreign Relations was a committee created by United States Secretary of State Cordell Hull on December 27, 1939, to examine "overseas war measures." It came about after Leo Pasvolsky, Hull's assistant, wrote a memorandum urging such a committee concerned with...
. After this became moribund, Hull appointed Pasvolsky the first director of the State Department
United States Department of State
The United States Department of State , is the United States federal executive department responsible for international relations of the United States, equivalent to the foreign ministries of other countries...
's new Division of Special Research
Division of Special Research
The Division of Special Research was a subdivision of the U.S. State Department charged with preparing studies in the field of problems post World War II...
in February, 1941. During 1942 diplomat Charles Woodruff Yost
Charles Woodruff Yost
Charles Woodruff Yost was a career U.S. diplomat who was assigned as his country's representative to the United Nations from 1969 to 1971.- Biography :Charles Yost was born in Watertown, New York, on November 6, 1907...
served as Assistant Chief. The two would work together at the Dumbarton Oaks conference, drafting the UN Charter. When the division was split in January 1943 into a Division of Political Studies and a Division of Economic Studies, Pasvolsky continued to supervise them. He was executive officer of the secretive Advisory Committee on Postwar Foreign Policy, which superseded the Division, returning to the broadly based Advisory Committee concept.
UN planning
The work of the Advisory Committeeled to the drafting of an outline for a "preliminary UN" by Undersecretary Sumner WellesSumner Welles
Benjamin Sumner Welles was an American government official and diplomat in the Foreign Service. He was a major foreign policy adviser to President Franklin D. Roosevelt and served as Under Secretary of State from 1937 to 1943, during FDR's presidency.-Early life:Benjamin Sumner Welles was born in...
, based on the design of the League of Nations
League of Nations
The League of Nations was an intergovernmental organization founded as a result of the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War. It was the first permanent international organization whose principal mission was to maintain world peace...
. Pasvolsky and Hull eventually opposed Welles' draft as being too hastily written. The major split was over whether the organization would have a "regional" nature, perhaps with local councils, in which each great power would have most of the responsiblity for its region, or would have more centralized structure. Welles, as well as Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...
(and later, Nelson Rockefeller
Nelson Rockefeller
Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller was the 41st Vice President of the United States , serving under President Gerald Ford, and the 49th Governor of New York , as well as serving the Roosevelt, Truman and Eisenhower administrations in a variety of positions...
) favored "regionalism," while Pasvolsky and Hull favored a unitary global body. Roosevelt wavered between the two sides.
Throughout 1942, Welles took the lead on planning for the UN and in January 1943 discussed a new and full draft charter with Roosevelt. It incorporated Roosevelt's four power "global policemen" but gave them less than absolute veto powers on an Executive Council with "regional" members too. Welles continued to work on the draft, but after a period of political infighting with Hull, he was forced to resign in August 1943. Subsequently Hull took charge of UN planning, and appointed Pasvolsky to put together a draft charter, which he produced in August. It retained the Security Council, General Assembly and Secretariat, which Welles and Pasvolsky had agreed on, but downplayed regionalism. With the absence of Welles or any other figure with comparable influence, interest and expertise Pasvolsky's ideas and phrasing dominated the drafting henceforward. Before Hull departed for the Moscow Conference (1943)
Moscow Conference (1943)
The Third Moscow Conference between the major Allies of World War II took place from October 18 to November 11, 1943, at the Moscow Kremlin and Spiridonovka Palace....
, Pasvolsky advised him that economic reconstruction, especially in the USSR, should be a prioritized, while Bowman insisted on territorial agreements restricting Soviet expansion. By February 3, 1944, Roosevelt had approved Pasvolsky's latest draft. It incorporated two major departures "that modulated at least the naked appearance of Big Four dominance". Unlike the League of Nations, it entrusted security matters exclusively to the Security Council. However, it widened the Security Council into an 11 member entity, reducing the dominance of the four big powers that Roosevelt had long envisioned.
In 1943 Pasvolsky was placed in charge of International Organization and Security Affairs in the State Department with responsibility for drafting the United Nations Charter; he was present at Bretton Woods
United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference
The United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference, commonly known as the Bretton Woods conference, was a gathering of 730 delegates from all 44 Allied nations at the Mount Washington Hotel, situated in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, to regulate the international monetary and financial order after...
and Dumbarton Oaks
Dumbarton Oaks Conference
The Dumbarton Oaks Conference or, more formally, the Washington Conversations on International Peace and Security Organization was an international conference at which the United Nations was formulated and negotiated among international leaders...
. He became chairman of the Coordination Committee at the San Francisco United Nations Conference on International Organization
United Nations Conference on International Organization
The United Nations Conference on International Organization was a convention of delegates from 50 Allied nations that took place from 25 April 1945 to 26 June 1945 in San Francisco, California. At this convention, the delegates reviewed and rewrote the Dumbarton Oaks agreements...
, where the charter was negotiated and signed. Secretary Hull depended heavily on Pasvolsky to explain the plans and proposals for the UN to President Roosevelt. Craufurd Goodwin writes "It is striking how close a resemblance Pasvolsky's statement of objectives for the new international organization bears to the positions he had taken with Moulton throughout the previous decade."
Another important innovation at Dumbarton Oaks was the Economic and Social Council
Economic and Social Council
Economic and Social Council might refer to one of the following:* United Nations Economic and Social Council* French Economic and Social Council* Economic and Social Council * European Economic and Social Committee...
. Pasvolsky and Stettinius managed to persuade Roosevelt to drop his idea of adding Brazil as a sixth member of the Security Council. Pasvolsky opposed an absolute veto by permanent members on all Security Council discussions and resolutions as giving these big states too much power, while Hull and the Soviets supported it. His persistence on this issue persuaded Hull and eventually the Soviets to limit the veto to substantive matters only - not allowing it on procedural ones including discussions.
Other postwar planning
The British Foreign Research and Press Service, directed by Arnold J. ToynbeeArnold J. Toynbee
Arnold Joseph Toynbee CH was a British historian whose twelve-volume analysis of the rise and fall of civilizations, A Study of History, 1934–1961, was a synthesis of world history, a metahistory based on universal rhythms of rise, flowering and decline, which examined history from a global...
, also worked on plans for postwar reconstruction and political and economic arrangements and collaborated closely with the Advisory Committee. Toynbee and Pasvolsky "met on many occasions to discuss in detail ideas about the shape of a world order under Anglo-Saxon leadership."
Pasvolsky, reflecting the thought of the State Department, the British, led by Lord Keynes
John Maynard Keynes
John Maynard Keynes, Baron Keynes of Tilton, CB FBA , was a British economist whose ideas have profoundly affected the theory and practice of modern macroeconomics, as well as the economic policies of governments...
and even the Soviets, envisioned the "eventual integration of Germany into the world economy." This lenience towards Germany in a 1944 State department memorandum by Pasvolsky inspired Treasury Secretary Morgenthau
Henry Morgenthau, Jr.
Henry Morgenthau, Jr. was the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury during the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt. He played a major role in designing and financing the New Deal...
's opposed Morgenthau plan
Morgenthau Plan
The Morgenthau Plan, proposed by United States Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau, Jr., advocated that the Allied occupation of Germany following World War II include measures to eliminate Germany's ability to wage war.-Overview:...
, but while the Morgenthau plan won tentative approval, the more lenient policies were eventually carried out. Similarly, Pasvolsky, concerned about the strain on occupation forces, favored not insisting on the removal of the Japanese emperor, opposing Dean Acheson
Dean Acheson
Dean Gooderham Acheson was an American statesman and lawyer. As United States Secretary of State in the administration of President Harry S. Truman from 1949 to 1953, he played a central role in defining American foreign policy during the Cold War...
and Archibald MacLeish
Archibald MacLeish
Archibald MacLeish was an American poet, writer, and the Librarian of Congress. He is associated with the Modernist school of poetry. He received three Pulitzer Prizes for his work.-Early years:...
Return to Brookings and death
He resigned from the State Department in March 1946.In 1946–53 he was director of international studies at the Brookings Institution, and a the time of his death, he was working on a study of the origin and history of the United Nations. He died of a heart attack on May 5, 1953 in Washington, DC, survived by his wife Christine McCormick Pasvolsky, two sisters and two brothers.His incomplete manuscript on the history of the UN was the basis of his assistant Ruth Russell's 1961 History of the United Nations Charter, the standard work on the subject.
Critics
Pasvolsky had his share of enemies at the State Department. Isaiah BowmanIsaiah Bowman
Isaiah Bowman, AB, Ph. D. was an American geographer...
, one of the leading advisers of the State Department, took an instant dislike to Pasvolsky. Bowman, Welles and Pasvolsky engaged in a power struggle over the direction of the Advisory Committee in late 1942. Bowman's differences with Pasvolsky erupted at San Francisco, where he wrote that he was "dangerous to American interests" and that it was "a mistake to put one man with his background into a key position." Pasvolsky resented Bowman equally, and wrote him out of subsequent histories of the UN's founding.
Some considered Pasvolsky's Brookings ideas for the world's economic problems simple-minded. Dean Acheson
Dean Acheson
Dean Gooderham Acheson was an American statesman and lawyer. As United States Secretary of State in the administration of President Harry S. Truman from 1949 to 1953, he played a central role in defining American foreign policy during the Cold War...
referred disparagingly to the "Hull-Pasvolsky establishment" and wrote that "Leo Pasvolsky was Mr. Hull's principal speech writer. Or one might say, he wrote Mr. Hull's principal speech: for whatever the occasion or title, the speech was apt to turn into a dissertation on the benefits of unhampered international trade and the true road to it through agreements reducing tarriffs." Acheson belittled Pasvolsky's postwar planning:
The whole effort, except for two results, seems to have been a singularly sterile one, uninspired by gifts either of insight or prophecy. One of these results was the foundation work for the United Nations Charter, the other, which laid an even broader foundation, the education of Senator Arthur Vandenberg to understand that beyond the borders of the United States existed a "vast external realm" which could and would affect profoundly our interests and our destiny.
In a 1967 letter, Acheson criticized American moralism in international affairs, which he saw as culminating in "that little rat Leo Pasvolsky's United Nations."