Philip Jessup

Philip C. Jessup (1897 - 1986) was a U.S. diplomat, scholar, and jurist.

United Nations

Jessup was Chairman of the Institute for Pacific Relations (IPR) American council from 1939 to 1940 and chairman of its Pacific council from 1939 to 1942. Both councils were high-level policy-making bodies. The Senate Internal Security Subcommittee found in 1954 that:

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The IPR has been considered by the American Communists and by Soviet officials as an instrument of Communist policy, propaganda and military intelligence. . . . A small core of officials and staff members carried the main burden of IPR activities and directed its administration and policies. Members of the small core of officials and staff members who controlled the IPR were either Communists or pro-Communists.

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Through the IPR Jessup was closely associated with Alger Hiss, Harry Dexter White, Frederick Vanderbilt Field and Lauchlin Currie.

Jessup served as assistant secretary-general of the United Nations Refugee and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) conference in 1943 and the Bretton Woods Conference in 1944. He was a member of the American delegation to the San Francisco United Nations charter conference in 1945. He was also the United States representative on the fifteen-man United Nations committee of jurists that had drafted the World Court statute. Continuing as a technical expert and advisor to various important UN commissions, Jessup prepared the State Department's "White Paper" on China. Written at the time when the Chinese Communist Party were overrunning the mainland, this report praised the CCP and condemned the Kuomintang forces. Jessup later became one of the early advocates for the admission of Peoples Republic of China to the United Nations.

President Truman appointed Jessup as United States delegate to the United Nations in 1951. When the appointment came before the Senate, however, it was not approved because of Jessup's openly pro-Communist record. President Truman circumvented the Senate action by assigning Jessup to the United Nations on an "interim appointment."

Institute for Pacific Relations

Senator McCarthy's first comments regarding Jessup were made during the Tydings Committee hearings where McCarthy stated that Jessup had an unusual affinity for Communist causes. McCarthy was never allowed by the Tydings Committee to outline his case regarding Jessup but the committee did allow Jessup to fly in from Pakistan and give his defense against charges that McCarthy had not yet even made. Needless to say, the Tydings Committee cleared Jessup as they did with everyone that appeared before them. However, in two speeches on the floor of the Senate, McCarthy gave his evidence regarding Jessup's "unusual affinity for Communist causes". They are as follows:

1. That Jessup had been affiliated with five Communist front groups;
2. That Jessup had been a leading light in the Institute of Pacific Relations (IPR) at a time that organization was reflecting the Communist Party line;
3. And that he had "pioneered the smear campaign against Nationalist China and Chiang Kai-shek" and propagated the "myth of the 'democratic Chinese Communist'" through the IPR magazine, Far Eastern Survey, over which he had "absolute control";
4. That Jessup had associated with known Communists in the IPR;
5. That the IPR's American Council under Jessup's guidance had received more than $7,000 of Communist funds from Frederick Vanderbilt Field;
6. That Jessup had "expressed vigorous opposition" to attempts to investigate Communist penetration of the IPR;
7. That Jessup had urged that United States atom bomb production be brought to a halt in 1946, and that essential atomic ingredients be "dumped into the ocean";
8. That Jessup had appeared as a character witness for Alger Hiss, and that later, after Alger Hiss's conviction, Jessup had found "no reason whatever to change his opinion about Hiss's veracity, loyalty and integrity."

While it may be questionable that Jessup pioneered the smear campaign against Chiang Kai-Shek, it's clear that he aided in it. There's no doubt that every single one of these allegations was essentially correct. Solid evidence shows that Jessup was associated with four Communist front organizations. They are as follows:

the American Russian Institute, the National Emergency Conference (and its successor, the National Emergency Conference for Democratic Rights), the American Law Students Association, and the American Council of the Institute of Pacific Relations. According to the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) each of these organizations was cited as Communist front groups at the time of Jessup's association with them. Although the Tydings Committee did not allow McCarthy to present his evidence against Jessup, the Tydings Committee did refer to some of McCarthy's evidence that were made on the floor of the Senate. Of course, as usual, the Tydings Committee either ignored the significance of the evidence or downplayed it. It was up to the McCarran Committee a year later to do the real investigating and in discussing the IPR, it stated, "The IPR was a vehicle used by Communists to orientate American Far Eastern policy toward Communist objectives." The McCarran Committee Hearings clearly indicate that the IPR was more than just a Communist front organization in that there was an active Communist "cell" that put the services of the IPR at the disposal of "Communist imperialism". And that this was achieved by "manipulating" the IPR's policy-making officials.

The McCarran Committee reported that ten of the thirty-three individuals whom Jessup recommended as delegates to the IPR Hot Springs Convention in January 1945 have been named as members of the Communist Party. Jessup was well aware that Frederick Vanderbilt Field was a member of the Communist Party, and especially so when Field resigned from the IPR to devote full-time to the Communist front organization, American Peace Mobilization.

Jessup also presided over the State Department Policy Conference of October 1949 that was not only stocked with Jessup's pro-Communist associates but also, in the words of the McCarran Committee, which stated, "...the prevailing [majority] view at the conference advocated (a) the recognition of Communist China; (b) normal trade relations between the United States and Communist China; (c) encouragement of trade between Japan and Communist China; (d) economic assistance to Communist China; (e) recognition that Communist conquest in Asia was a natural and inevitable consequence of revolutionary ferment in Asia with its Communist nature being incidental." Harold Stassen and General Joseph Fortier have respectively testified that Jessup not only ignored advice to disregard the pro-Communist direction of the conference and that Jessup was in favor of recognizing Communist China. The above evidence clearly demonstrates that Jessup was at least a security risk and that the State Department Loyalty program failed to identify him as such.

World Court

Shortly after John F. Kennedy took office as president, the State Department approved the appointment of Jessup as U.S. candidate for the International Court of Justice, a post that did not need Senate confirmation. He served from 1961 until 1970.