The Greeks Had a Word

Congress was like the chorus in a Greek tragedy, standing just offstage as the crisis unfolded, wringing its hands and chanting its comments.

The week began with a minor uproar. Central figure: Texas' Tom Connally snorting at Republican critics of Administration foreign policy. "All this talk about 'bipartisanship' and 'You've got to consult the Republicans'--to hell with all that! It's got to be an American policy." The words of the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee were still echoing around Capitol Hill when the Korean news hit.

For a few hours politics and recriminations were forgotten. Democrats and Republicans drew together in a kind of stunned silence to listen to the latest news and the latest grim briefing on the situation from Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Lovett and Lieut. General Alfred Gruenther, the Army's chief planner.

Chorus. Then the chorus of the country's legislators swelled out. Just as many U.S. citizens had, some Senators cried out for the President to authorize MacArthur to use the atomic bomb. There was no harmony of suggestions. Congressmen reflected all the different doubts, all the practical difficulties that such a decision would involve.

Republicans lifted their voices with renewed vigor against Secretary Acheson. Wisconsin's Joe McCarthy sounded a new dramatic note. The President should sanction the use of Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist troops in Korea, he cried, or Congress should "immediately impeach" Harry Truman.

Onstage. In such aimless chantings Congress did not get much work done. Dixiecrats successfully carried off a filibuster which killed the Alaska and Hawaii statehood bills for this session. The bills had been at the top of Mr. Truman's legislative list for the lame-duck session.

But this week the congressional chorus began to march on the stage to take an active part in the show. From the House Ways & Means Committee came the Administration's excess-profits bill, voted out over the fruitless protests of Republican members, economists and businessmen (see BUSINESS). But in the atmosphere of crisis, Administration leaders predicted that they would drive it through to early passage.

With a good deal more unanimity, Congress also got ready to pass the President's request for an additional $17.9 billion for arms. Congress, as it long had been, was ready to do whatever was necessary to give the U.S. the military sinews it needed.

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