FOREIGN RELATIONS: New Stack

State Secretary Jimmy Byrnes had played for high stakes in London, with something less than average success. Last week, for future play in the European game, Harry Truman gave him a new stack of chips: control of surplus property disposal abroad.

By executive order, President Truman transferred to Jimmy Byrnes’s Department of State:

¶ All functions of the Army-Navy Liquidation Commission, which has an estimated six billion dollars in surplus property in Europe alone.

¶ Control of U.S. participation in UNRRA, which has plans for distribution of $150 million worth of surplus property to European nations as relief.*

¶ Jurisdiction over the disposal of returned Lend-Lease equipment.

The new powers put the State Department in a position to trade trucks, textiles, clothing and shoes for commercial or military concessions, to withhold supplies from nations which do not want to deal with the U.S. Said Reconversion Director John W. Snyder: “From now on our foreign policy will have its working tools under its own control.”

* For news of U.S. financial standing in UNRRA, see INTERNATIONAL.