Facts of Life

The Administration warily hinted at a further expansion of its foreign policy. Secretary of State Marshall wrote: "Enduring political harmony rests heavily upon economic stability." Under Secretary Dean Acheson,* speaking in Cleveland, Miss., was a little more obvious. Said Acheson: "When Secretary Marshall returned from Moscow he did not talk to us about ideologies or armies. He talked about food and fuel and their relation to industrial production ... to the peace of the world. . . . The facts of international life mean that the U.S. is going to have to undertake further emergency financing."

What Marshall and Acheson meant was that the pressing struggle between communism and Western Democracy was not on a military plane or even (except as a means to an end) on an ideological level. It was a struggle between the U.S. and economic anarchy--a war which the U.S. must wage with food and fuel. On the outcome of that struggle depended the survival of the democratic world and the world's future. It was not only the world's prime ministers and premiers who turned to the U.S. The young turned their pinched and inquiring faces westward. If the U.S. failed them, their faces would turn toward Moscow.

Marshall and Acheson meant that such token payments as aid to Greece and Turkey were only the beginning. But how far would the U.S. have to go, if it seriously intended to carry out the Truman Doctrine? What was the present invoice on the doctrine, and what did Acheson mean by "further emergency financing?"

Invoice on a Doctrine. A scanning of promises already made and demands impending gave some idea. Demands were not confined to Europe. Korea (see FOREIGN NEWS) was at the head of the line with a request for $75 to $100 million. The State Department was getting ready to reverse its policy in China, take the Government of Chiang Kai-shek back into its good graces. China was expected to ask for $1 billion. Mexico's President Aleman had won from Harry Truman a promise of help which was now figured to run to $100 million. The cost of implementing the Truman Doctrine in the next six to twelve months might reach between $2 and $4 billion. Still incalculable was the biggest potential item of all: further aid to Great Britain. British officials no longer debated whether they would need another loan, but only when they should ask for it.

One high Administration official, who cautiously insisted upon anonymity, thought it was time that the Administration told the nation exactly what it had to do: "The only thing which really fits our needs is the peacetime equivalent of Lend-Lease. Only if we recognize that and compel Congress to recognize it can we operate properly." To win World War II the U.S. had expended in Lend-Lease $50.7 billion. Measured against that and against a national income of $177 billion, a $4 billion investment in peace seemed reasonable.

* Who resigned this week. He will be succeeded July 1 by Robert A. Lovett, former Assistant Secretary of War for Air. (TIME, April 7).

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