THE NATIONS: Global Squawk

Exactly six months ago, the U.S. and its principal allies at Lisbon initialed the master blueprint for European defense. By the end of 1952, they would mobilize the 50 combat divisions that Supreme Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower considered the rock-bottom minimum needed to contain a Soviet attack. During 1953-54, if all went well, NATO’s armies would be doubled, its air force would reach near-parity with the Red air force. All did not go well.

Last week the whole painfully reconstructed system of U.S. military alliances, paid for in the main by higher U.S. taxes and devoted in the main to the defense of Europe, was gripped by a disheartening inertia that threatened not to wreck it, but to deflate it. There were sulks and angry words in many of the world’s capitals, and, as usual, it is the U.S. that is blamed most of all—the nation that pays the piper but is still unable to call the tune clearly. “The U.S. got us into this,” was the refrain that rose up in Europe. “The U.S. must bail us out.”

Each ally had its special squawk:

Great Britain, forced to choose between arms and exports, slowed down rearmament (see FOREIGN NEWS). “It is no part of our hopes or wishes,” observed Tory President of the Board of Trade Peter Thorneycroft to the American Chamber of Commerce in London, “that the citizens of the U.S. should tax themselves into poverty in order that their country might become the soup kitchen of the Western world. We want to pay our way . . . We ask a fair deal for our exporters . . . free and fair competition with your own producers.” It was Thorneycroft’s way of saying that high U.S. tariffs are partly to blame for Britain’s troubles.

Spain, a half-ally, half-wooed last year by Senator Pat McCarran’s “special” $100 million appropriation (which President Truman has refused to deliver), was playing hard to get over the naval and air bases the U.S. wants. Franco’s price: $125 million in MSA funds and an ironclad guarantee that the U.S. will fly to Spain’s defense in the event of war with Russia.

Iran’s Parliament listened to hotheaded demands that Premier Mossadegh expel the U.S. Mission which helps train the 140,000-man Iranian army. Mossadegh let it be known that he might prefer Yankee dollars to Yankee soldiers.

France was the week’s prize squawker. The French government pulled a dismaying political tantrum because the U.S. said no to its request for an additional $625 million aid. The U.S. was willing to give the French $187 million more, and suggested that Paris should try to make ends meet on that. This $187 million is an addition to all other U.S. aid to France, which this year amounted to about $1 billion. Parisian hotheads leaked stories to the papers alleging that unless the U.S. paid up, France would 1) go bankrupt and possibly Communist, 2) pull out of Indo-China, 3) forbid German rearmament, 4) haul the U.S. before the NATO Council for welshing on its obligations. Premier Antoine Pinay fumed Gallicly because his budget, which he had promised to balance without increasing taxes, had been worked out on the assumption that the U.S. would fork over. Pinay sent French Ambassador Henri Bonnet to the State Department with an indignant protest. Said Bonnet afterwards: “The two governments did not see the question with the same eye.”

That was the crux of the matter. After promising to produce 15 divisions and 2,500 combat aircraft within three years, the French handed out contracts with patriotic verve, but reckoned all along that MSA would pick up the tab for most of the jet fighters and jeeps, all the tanks and nearly all the heavy artillery.

Washington’s reaction to the French request was: “Preposterous.”