National Affairs: Reactions

The question raised by the Paris Plan—a question which the U.S. must now answer—was this: can, or will, the U.S. get Western Europe to organize itself? Russia was obviously banking on the chance that the U.S. could not or would not. Then chaos would come to Europe, and chaos is Russia’s dish.

From a Union of Beggars? Washington studied the report seriously but without enthusiasm. Top level policymakers appreciated the sweat and good intentions which had gone into it, but in many respects they considered it discouragingly unsatisfactory.

For one thing, it was too optimistic. That was partly the State Department’s own doing. State had advised the conferees not to make their situation seem too bad; if they did, U.S. Congressmen would be resentful.

In some respects, it was technically imperfect. A State Department official criticized the special report on steel with the comment: “[It is] so full of holes that the old WPB’s requirements committee would have rejected it in a few minutes.”

The plea for $3 billion to provide currency reserves seemed to some officials like a mere rephrasing of Ernie Bevin’s suggestion for “redistributing” the buried gold at Fort Knox.

In the long run, these were details which might be ironed out. There was a far greater defect. As London’s New Statesman and Nation said: “American assistance on such a scale cannot reasonably be expected unless Congress is presented not merely with a demand note from an Amalgamated Union of Beggars, but with convincing evidence that . . . the recipients will cooperate in undertaking to increase their own productivity and their eventual ability economically to stand on their own feet.” Washington simply did not feel that the Paris Plan presented that kind of evidence.

Problem Personified. But the threat of chaos and Communism over Europe would impel Washington to act. This week, President Truman indicated that he would ask Congress for $580 million in stopgap help for France and Italy.

The ultimate decision was indeed up to Congress, which would have to supply the funds. Congress did not want to pour out billions for the Marshall Plan unless it was reasonably convinced that the plan would work; but neither did it want to see Communism spread to the shores of the Atlantic. Last week, scores of Congressmen were poking into the corners of Europe. Some, like South Dakota’s Karl E. Mundt and Alabama’s Pete Jarman, penetrated the Soviet sector of Berlin, where they could see the problem personified.