THE NATIONS: With Both Bread & Freedom

The Truman Doctrine had been addressed primarily to the Russians, who understood it perfectly. It meant “Stop Shoving,” and the shoving at least became a bit gentler in Greece, Turkey, France, Italy. But Europe, hungry and jittery, was inclined to think the U.S. was “getting tough.” Even that notably un-jittery institution, the Vatican, felt a necessity to disassociate itself (TIME, June 23) from the strong U.S. line.

Two points, always implicit in the Truman Doctrine, had been somewhat overlooked in Europe: 1) the U.S. did not want war; 2) only a coordinated program of European reconstruction, with U.S. help,* would save Europe from the Communist advance which the Truman Doctrine decried.

In his Harvard speech Secretary Marshall made the second point clear, and he may well have been surprised at the intensity of Europe’s reaction (see below). Other Americans besides Marshall understand the constructive side of the Truman Doctrine. One of them is Hamilton Fish Armstrong, editor of Foreign Affairs. In its current issue, Armstrong, after a two-month visit to Europe, says:

“The U.S. is not loved or hated because it is a citadel of political liberty . . . but according as it seems to be a going concern, measured by its ability and willingness to contribute from its own comfortable fat to strengthen Europe’s thin and shivering frame. . . .

“At the moment the tendency is to judge the United States rather severely and to make allowances for Soviet Russia. More is expected of us [but] more will be expected of Soviet Russia in the long run because her claims are so much more sweeping than ours. . . . [But] Marxist Russia does not ‘produce the goods’ . . . bread comes from America and it does not come from Russia. . . .

“If there is to be a long-range, overall plan … we should consider how to make the face we show in Europe represent more closely the rugged visage of the United States, how to make our voice there ring out with more of our native confidence. . . . Europe wants what we can give and Soviet Russia cannot—material help. And with it we offer what Soviet Russia will not—political freedom.”

*To pin down what the U.S. could and should do, Harry Truman this week created three committees: 1) a Government committee under Interior Secretary Krug to tabulate national resources, 2) another Government committee to assess the effect on the U.S. economy of aid to others, and 3) a nonpartisan committee of 19 citizens to make foreign aid recommendations to the White House in the light of the facts.