East-West Trade Trends / Mutual Defense Assistance Control Act of 1951 (the Battle Act); Fourth Report to Congress, Second Half of 1953

by United States. Foreign Operations Administration

[APPENDIX C]

Text of the Battle Act

Mutual Defense Assistance Control Act of 1951 [H. R. 4550], Public Law 213, 82d Congress, 65 Stat. 644, Approved October 26, 1951

An ACT To provide for the control by the United States and cooperating foreign nations of exports to any nation or combination of nations threatening the security of the United States, including the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and all countries under its domination, and for other purposes

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That this Act may be cited as the “Mutual Defense Assistance Control Act of 1951.”

TITLE I—WAR MATERIALS

Sec. 101. The Congress of the United States, recognizing that in a world threatened by aggression the United States can best preserve and maintain peace by developing maximum national strength and by utilizing all of its resources in cooperation with other free nations, hereby declares it to be the policy of the United States to apply an embargo on the shipment of arms, ammunition, and implements of war, atomic energy materials, petroleum, transportation materials of strategic value, and items of primary strategic significance used in the production of arms, ammunition, and implements of war to any nation or combination of nations threatening the security of the United States, including the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and all countries under its domination, in order to (1) increase the national strength of the United States and of the cooperating nations; (2) impede the ability of nations threatening the security of the United States to conduct military operations; and (3) to assist the people of the nations under the domination of foreign aggressors to reestablish their freedom.

It is further declared to be the policy of the United States that no military, economic, or financial assistance shall be supplied to any nation unless it applies an embargo on such shipments to any nation or combination of nations threatening the security of the United States, including the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and all countries under its domination.

This Act shall be administered in such a way as to bring about the fullest support for any resolution of the General Assembly of the United Nations, supported by the United States, to prevent the shipment of certain commodities to areas under the control of governments engaged in hostilities in defiance of the United Nations.