ECAmericcms Abroad

When EGA set up European headquarters in Paris' elegant Hotel Talleyrand, overlooking the Place de la Concorde, a cynical boulevardier cracked: "How very appropriate for our American friends to choose that building! The only other people who ever succeeded in unifying Europe lived there too--Talleyrand and the De Rothschilds."*

Their claim as unifiers was historically debatable, but there was no argument that Talleyrand had employed a consummate skill in diplomacy and the De Rothschilds a wizardry in finance. The ECAmericans were a rougher corps, a new breed of economic diplomat from across the sea, by & large unused to the niceties of traditional diplomacy. They had come to do a job --put Europe on its economic feet, with the help of U.S. dollars and know-how. At first, some were inclined to speak loud and impatiently.

In the course of this first year, such ECAmericans abroad had learned to speak more softly and sympathetically. Europe, after all, was more than a real-estate deal or a sloppy assembly line. It was an old, complex, sensitive society, worn with deep-grained rivalries, sick with social, economic and political strains. It was also the ancestral land of the ECAmericans. By saving it they were saving something of themselves.

Man at the Helm. No.1 ECAmerican abroad was tall, somber-eyed W. Averell Harriman, once the New Deal's "tame millionaire," now the greying wheelhorse (or Special Representative) of the new diplomacy. Through Harriman's headquarters in the four-story, high-walled Hotel Talleyrand flowed a massive bureaucratic traffic in paper and policy--reports from ECA missions in every participating country, directives from Washington, processing documents for ECAid, plans for cooperation from European governments.

Harriman works quietly; his reserved, incisive approach is much less alien to Europeans than the salesmanship of Paul Hoffman. Harriman has developed an intuitive feel for continental sensibilities, whether superficial or profound. Not long ago a Frenchwoman wrote him that she liked Americans in general but did he realize that the fluorescent lights burning late in the Hotel Talleyrand "marred the somber beauty of the Concorde at night?" Gallantly Harriman ordered black curtains to mask ECA's nocturnal glare.

On a higher psychological plane, Harriman has been much concerned with what France's Jean Monnet calls "the moral salvage of Europe--a continent, like a human being, can only keep its self-respect when it is living from the product of its own labor." To this end, he has soft-pedaled the "charity" note in ECAid, played up strongly the theme of "temporary contribution to Europe's own effort." With self-help and Europe's pride in mind, he asks: "How better could we have expressed our belief in the dignity of the individual than through the Marshall Plan?"

No Small Talk. Harriman's day begins grumpily. In the early morning (7:30), before leaving his Left Bank apartment, he reads overnight cables and pencils curt comments to his staff ("Why wasn't this brought to my attention earlier?"). A black Chrysler drops him at the Hotel Talleyrand by 9.

Office routine is crowded with correspondence and conferences. Harriman assigns administrative detail to others, reserves policymaking for himself. Invariably he schedules a "business lunch"; among his guests have been almost all of Europe's bigwigs. For dinner he usually invites his own aides. Noon or night, the conversation sticks to politico-economic lines; Harriman has no small talk.

Sometimes, when entertaining at home with his art-collecting wife, Marie Whitney Harriman, ECA's European chief finds his guests distracted from weighty conversation. His salon is hung with a pink Renoir, a blue Picasso, a Van Gogh bowl of yellow tulips, and a Gauguin. Said one of his dinner guests, later: "God, how could I concentrate on what he was saying, with those around?"

Men in the Field. Under Harriman's seasoned wing, at their stations through Europe, other ECAmericans were at work. Among them:

David Bruce, 50, hale and pink-cheeked, directed ECA's mission to France. Onetime son-in-law (now divorced) of Andrew Mellon, a prudent man of varied experience (law, A.E.F., consular service, banking, corporate affairs.* Red Cross, OSS, Virginia legislature, U.S. Department of Commerce), Bruce had become bound up, to the exclusion of almost everything else in his thinking and feeling, with the problems, virtues and defects of France.

Last week, as Parisians basked in spring's first sunny warmth, Bruce stood by his broad window in the U.S. Embassy Annex overlooking the Place de la Concorde. "The trouble with this weather," he complained lightly, "is that it makes the French too optimistic about their economy. Rain would be better for their crops." Many an EGA man believed that France, with her chronic slipshod finances and Communist sabotage, was ECA's biggest problem. Bruce was sure France could also be ECA's biggest triumph.

American aid had rescued the country from bankruptcy--and close on bankruptcy's heels had lurked dictatorship, not necessarily Communist, but certainly of harsh totalitarian economic control. Now France, in effect, had one leg in the emergency ward and one in the convalescent ward. It was Bruce's immediate job to get France entirely out of the first and into the second.

With tact, firmness, sympathy and inexhaustible good humor, he had prodded and pushed France's middleway government toward a balanced budget. He was urging more efficient tax collecting, more efficient production techniques. His staff had calculated that a rationalization of methods could increase output by 10% to 15% without longer working hours or new equipment. Impressed, the French government planned to set up a "national center of productivity," to send 1,500 executives, engineers and workers to study methods in the U.S. (the Communists had so far blocked these plans). Ahead lay other plans for reorientation of France's economy--fewer vineyards and more wheatfields, heavy machinery instead of perfumes and fancy handbags.

Norman Collisson, 47, stocky, go-getting industrial engineer (onetime chief power engineer, American Gas & Electric Co.), was the hard-working chief of ECA's mission to Germany's Bizonia. As a Navy captain, he had a peculiar wartime job: running strikebound plants (York Safe and Lock, some 60 oil refineries) seized by the Navy. Now he was trying to tap Bizonia's vitally needed industry. "Western Europe," he said, "is like a machine that has run way down. Part needs oiling, part replacing, part overhauling. Before this machine can achieve top efficiency again, every single piece must be functioning smoothly. Germany is the carburetor of this machine." He had staunchly backed ECA's drive to halt the dismantling of Ruhr factories.

Collisson had traveled thousands of miles around Western Germany, driving his own Pontiac or catching a sleeper, to tell large groups of Germans exactly what the Marshall Plan is--and is not. With an interpreter at his shoulder, he had spoken to chambers of commerce and trade unionists. His booming voice had carried sincerity and conviction. His audiences had invariably become so interested that they stayed to shoot questions at him for an hour or two after a speech, and hurried away like salesmen after a pep talk.

As an industrial engineer, Collisson knew the importance of incentive for all classes, since all together they made what he calls "the German carburetor." Telling the Germans as much as possible about the Marshall Plan was one of the best ways to prime the carburetor.

Thomas Finletter, 55, a Philadelphia-born Wall Street lawyer (son and grandson of judges) with a trigger-quick mind, served as ECA's chief in Britain. Reticent, hardheaded and caustic-humored, Finletter has been called "the little acid drop." The British did not mind his sharpness. Said one appreciative Whitehaller, lifting his eyes to the ceiling: "If only all the people we had to deal with were like Finletter--."

Sympathy and reticence were somewhat easier in Britain than in other EGA fields. No one was plugging away at the Marshall Plan goal of independent economy by 1953 with more determined self-help than self-denying Britons. Finletter had no need to pressure or preach. Socialist Britain, in fact, could be quite touchy about capitalist America's help. As Finletter well knew, EGA could come a political cropper if it crudely pressed a capitalist tract into Britain's hand along with the ham sandwich.

Alan Valentine, 48, tall, handsome university president (Rochester) on leave (also Freeport Sulphur Co., Bausch & Lomb Optical Co.), was EGA chief in The Hague. He had come to The Netherlands at Paul Hoffman's persuasion, leaving two children in schools at home. He worked from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m., running a 41-man mission, visiting plants, farms, talking with business groups, trying (as he put it) "to get four or five important things done per day, but usually settling for one or two."

EGA help had not resolved Holland's overseas mercantile problem--how to restore trade with Indonesia and her once lucrative transoceanic shipping in general. But ECA's pressure had helped bring about one solid achievement long dreamed by the Dutch: economic union with their Benelux neighbors, the Belgians and Lux-embourgers.

James Zellerbach, 57, a slight, balding Pacific Coast paper & pulp man (Crown Zellerbach), had bustled into Italy nine months ago, an'EGA chief brimming with vim, vigor and the proverbial vitality of American business. Left-wing Italian newsmen heckled and flustered him. Government ministers, explaining land redistribution, stared when he cut them short with "I'm not interested in politics. I want facts. It's strictly a business proposition." Washington heard that Zellerbach had antagonized just about everyone he met, that he was ripping into left, center and right for not seeing things the way Americans do. He antagonized a lot of Italians by telling them that land reform was bad because it would decrease production. This, he said, was just his personal opinion; Italians had a hard time distinguishing between Zellerbach, the person, and Zellerbach, the ECAdministrator.

But last week, after months of persevering work, eight suit-rumpling, eye-opening trips into the dusty hinterland, a steadily growing acquaintance with the Italian temper and background, Zellerbach felt that it was all a lot bigger job than anyone had realized at the start. The business proposition was also a proposition in national and human subtleties. With larger perspective but undiminished determination, Zellerbach said: "It's more of a challenge than ever." Italian ministers were more mellow, too. They were thinking less in political and regional and more in overall economic terms. They were leaning on Zellerbach for counsel. They liked him fine.

Toward Unity. Thus, slowly and painfully, teaching and being taught, ECAmer-icans abroad were helping Europe pull itself together. Much indeed had yet to be done. In the process of recovery and reconstruction with ECAid, the participating nations had talked, more than acted on, unity. But they had taken two notable steps:

They had established the Organization for European Economic Cooperation. Through OEEC and its subcommittees, the 19 participants are correlating their plans and EGA requirements for economic stability by 1953. In so doing, they have broken precedent. They have frankly exchanged economic information once regarded as state secrets. They have agreed to continue OEEC after ECA's demise.

They had launched the Intra-European Payments plan, also known as "the little EGA." This is an important financial device which has had marked success loosening log jams in European trade. The Italians, for example, cannot buy goods from Belgium because they lack Belgian currency. The Belgians, therefore, agree to grant the Italians the necessary exchange to buy Belgian goods. Then EGA in Washington reimburses the Belgians with an equivalent grant in ECAid. Thus the U.S. dollar works "twice"--for the Belgians, and through them for the Italians. This device has released some 810 million U.S. dollars of intra-European trade.

The Postman Rings Twice. One day last week, the ECAmericans in the Hotel Talleyrand were reminded of something they had almost forgotten. In 1947, when he was France's Vice Premier, Communist Boss Maurice Thorez had briefly occupied an office in the building. Now, in the mailman's bag, there came a letter addressed to "Maurice Thorez, Hotel Talleyrand." A smartly uniformed U.S. security guard scrawled "inconnu--unknown" across the letter, and handed it back to the postman.

For ECAmericans there was a moral in this incident. If they failed to forge a free united Europe, the postman might ring again. Maurice Thorez or his ilk might be there, forging another kind of Europe.

*A venerable palace from which 18th Century Frenchmen watched the guillotine, the Hotel Talleyrand acquired its name after Napoleon presented it to his astute Foreign Minister. Later it became the seat of the fabulous Baron Edouard de Rothschild, who ran his financial empire from its handsome chambers--until the Nazis moved in their North Atlantic Naval Command. After V-E day the French government used the building as quarters for colonial V.I.P.s--beys, sultans, sheiks, Glaoui and assorted Mussulmen. Now it has a snack bar where secretaries from Smith College and other incubators of the American way of life nibble sandwiches. *At one time director of 25 corporations, including Westinghouse Electric, Union Pacific, and the Rockingham, N.H. race track.

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