Dave: I cannot permit your slight on the ineffable Calvin Coolidge to stand

uncorrected. The Kellogg-Briand pact began as a ploy by Briand, the French

Foreign Minister, to poke a finger in Germany’s eye by establishing a

“special relationship” between France and the U.S. He intended the pact to

be bilateral. Coolidge was hostile to the whole thing, on both

constitutional and philosophical grounds, as he spelled out at a press

conference on 11/25/27. Constitutional: Coolidge suggested that the Briand

proposal might be considered unconstitutional because it conflicted with the

congressional prerogative to declare war. Philosophical: “There isn’t any

short cut to peace. There is no short cut to any other salvation. I think

we are advised it has to be worked out with fear and trembling.” (Note:

“We are advised…” was Coolidge-speak for: “It says in the Bible…”) It

was only with the approach of the 1928 election that Coolidge was very

grudgingly persuaded to support the pact, which by that time, as a result of

political maneuvering that was highly displeasing to Briand, had gone

multilateral. Robert Ferrell explained: “For the Republican party,

embarrassed for years with its negative record on foreign policy, the

antiwar pact was heaven-sent. Leaders of the Grand Old Party realized with

fond anticipation that the Coolidge administration — a Republican

administration — had ‘out-covenanted’ Woodrow Wilson himself.” Coolidge’s

subsequent support for the pact was unillusioned and entirely political. He

never liked the thing–at the ceremonial signing in the East Room of the

White House, Assistant Secretary of State William Castle noted that “the

President’s face looked like murder.”