State Department Announces Allied Agreement on Relief and Rehabilitation Plan

A plan for a United Nations relief and rehabilitation administration has been agreed upon by the United States, England, Russia, and China, the State Department announced today. The announcement added that other nations associated in the war against the Axis are also expected to agree to this plan which will then come before a conference on relief problems which will take place in Washington or nearby within the next ten weeks.

The preamble of the agreement which expresses the scope of the proposed organization, says that “immediately upon the liberation of any area by the armed forces of the United Nations, the population thereof shall receive aid and relief from their sufferings, food, clothing and shelter, aid in the prevention of pestilence and in the recovery of the health of the people, and that preparations and arrangements shall be made for the return of prisoners and exiles to their homes, for the resumption of essential services, to the end that peoples once freed may be preserved and restored to health and strength for the tasks and opportunities of building anew.”

The plan calls for a council of one member from each nation to be the governing body of the organization. This council will meet at least twice a year. When it is not in session, a central committee of the big four will have full powers. Special committees of the council, on supplies for Europe and other regions, will include representatives of the appropriate governments.

The administration is granted broad powers “to acquire, hold and convey property, to enter into contracts and undertake obligations, to designate or create agencies and to review the activities of agencies so created, to manage undertakings and in general to perform any legal act appropriate to its object and purposes.”

Executive power will be in the hands of a director general, who must be chosen and can only be removed by unanimous vote of the big four. It is expected that former governor Herbert H. Lehman of New York, director of the State Department’s Office of Foreign Relief and Rehabilitation Operations, will be the most prominent candidate for the job.