Arms & Doubts

The U.S. knew it had scrawled its initials on a lot of North Atlantic Treaty rearmament programs, but last week, with a jolt, it discovered what some of the bill was going to look like. In the next year alone, the State Department indicated, France will get some $2 billion in arms and equipment. That figure was twice as much as the U.S. had paid for four of its past wars* put together. But it was only the beginning: eventually France would get about $6 billion.

With the money, the French would speed equipment to their forces in Indo-China, and build up inside their own country an army which would bear the first brunt of any Russian attack in Western Europe. They would fully equip five existing divisions with U.S. arms, and would call up and arm four new divisions with U.S. money. And they would equip another division--the tenth--out of their own pockets.

The U.S. had indicated, time after time, that it was ready and willing to foot much of the bill in Western Europe. But last week Herbert Hoover added his voice to those who insisted that Western Europe had to supply energy and urgency of its own. "We should be willing to aid," said Hoover over a nationwide radio network, "but if Western Europe wants defense from the Communist tide, they must do most of it themselves and do it fast . . . We should say, and at once, that we shall provide no more money until a definitely united and sufficient European army is in sight." If the Europeans don't move "definitely and effectively" to mobilize, he added, then the U.S. would do better to "quit talking and paying," and think about holding the Atlantic Ocean (with Britain) as its line. Not everybody went that far. Able, budget-conscious Senator Walter George agreed that Europe had to raise its own defenses, but added: "I do not see how Western Europe can bring in a 'unified and sufficient army' without some financial assistance from the U.S."

After weeks of study of the U.S.'s books, a joint Senate-House committee last week completed the most careful compilation yet of the nation's expenditures in foreign aid since war's end. The total: $42,591,000,000. The figure, almost equal to the cost of U.S. Government for the six years preceding World War II, does not include contract authorizations, i.e., money still to be spent, or loans which have been paid back by foreign governments. The big items in money already spent: military aid, $6,052,000,000, outright economic aid, $36,539,000,000.

* The American Revolution cost early-day taxpayers $370 million; the War of 1812, $113 million; the Mexican War, $97 million; the Spanish-American, $444.5 million. Estimated U.S. expenditure for World War II: $350 billion.

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