Back More
Salem Press

Table of Contents

See Also

Isolationism

Marshall Plan

New Deal programs

North Atlantic Treaty Organization

Roosevelt, Franklin D.

Taft, Robert A.

Truman, Harry S.

United Nations

The 1940s in America

Vandenberg, Arthur Hendrick

by Keith M. Finley

Identification Republican senator from Michigan, 1928-1951

Vandenberg became an important advocate of America’s internationalist foreign policy following World War II. Originally an isolationist, he embraced the need for the Marshall Plan and the United Nations, offering much-needed assistance to President Harry S. Truman.

Arthur Hendrick Vandenberg studied law at the University of Michigan before entering the newspaper industry. On March 31, 1928, he was appointed to the U.S. Senate as a member of the Republican Party, an office he retained until his death. Vandenberg early gained a reputation as a staunch opponent of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal and as a foreign policy isolationist, but American entry into World War II prompted Vandenberg to reevaluate his views on diplomacy. He soon advocated American involvement in the United Nations as well as in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Although fiercely anticommunist, he advocated the necessity of Soviet inclusion in the United Nations. In 1946, he was a delegate to the United Nations assembly in San Francisco, before serving as a delegate to the U.N. General Assembly. Rising to chairmanship of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1947, Vandenberg played a crucial role in ensuring congressional passage of the Marshall Plan for European recovery.

Impact

Vandenberg’s Senate leadership opened a brief yet pivotal period of bipartisan congressional consensus following World War II in which the United States firmly embraced its role as an international power.

Further Reading

1 

Schlesinger, Stephen. Act of Creation: The Founding of the United Nations. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 2003.

2 

Tompkins, C. David. Senator Arthur H. Vandenberg: The Evolution of a Modern Republican, 1884-1945. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1970.

Citation Types

Type
Format
MLA 9th
Finley, Keith M. "Vandenberg, Arthur Hendrick." The 1940s in America, edited by Thomas Tandy Lewis, Salem Press, 2010. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=1940_160140701601.
APA 7th
Finley, K. M. (2010). Vandenberg, Arthur Hendrick. In T. T. Lewis (Ed.), The 1940s in America. Salem Press. online.salempress.com.
CMOS 17th
Finley, Keith M. "Vandenberg, Arthur Hendrick." Edited by Thomas Tandy Lewis. The 1940s in America. Hackensack: Salem Press, 2010. Accessed December 14, 2025. online.salempress.com.