Slowdown

From strike-racked Paris last week, Republican Foreign Policy Expert John Foster Dulles directed an urgent hint toward Washington. Communist efforts to wreck Europe's economy, he said, would convince Congress more than ever of Europe's desperate need for help. His hint was sharpened almost daily by new reports of Communist violence, sabotage, street battles and wrecked trains. But Dulles' congressional colleagues did not seem to hear. Congress was bogged down in dawdling and delay.

The slowdown began as soon as the House Foreign Affairs Committee reported out its $590 million relief bill (including a $67 million cut in the Administration's program, a $60 million dividend for China). Before it could reach the House floor, it had to be routed through the Rules Committee, headed by Illinois' Isolationist Leo Allen. The Rules Committeemen had their crowbars poised and ready.

Gathered around their big, green-topped table, they ganged up on the committee report. Chairman Allen was frankly against any aid at all for what one committeeman called Europe's "armies of mendicants and loafers."

Cold with rage, Foreign Affairs Chairman Charles Eaton argued back. "We might just as well face the fact that Russia proposes to conquer the world by infiltration, by revolution or by force of arms. . . . If we don't send this aid the price will be much more than this." The committeemen engaged in six hours of futile wrangling before they sent the bill to the House.

When the House convened next day, the wrangling began all over again. For six hours that afternoon and six the next, the debate ranged over familiar, barren ground. Michigan's Clare Hoffman, who is bitterly isolationist and antiCommunist, rose up to quote from Washington's Farewell Address: "Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground?" Then, quite unpredictably, he branded the danger of world Communism "a false doctrine."

Attendance dwindled as Congressmen gossiped in the cloakrooms, began checking out for the weekend. Democrats slyly turned over their speaking time to Republicans, who had to send out search parties for reinforcements. But Majority Leader Charlie Halleck was adamant: "If the Democrats want to rubber-stamp this program, they can do it. We want this program to be debated and threshed out before the votes are taken."

As the House went to work on amendments this week, there was no doubt that the interim aid bill would pass, eventually--in just about the shape the Senate had already approved. Meanwhile, the bitterest congressional foes of Communism seemed curiously determined to play the obstructionist role which would best suit the Communist game.

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