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Under the leadership of Arthur Vandenberg, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last week unanimously passed (13-to-0) Harry Truman's bill to speed economic and military aid to Greece and Turkey. The bill contained an amendment, written by Senator Vandenberg, which would give U.N. the right to terminate that aid if a majority of nations decided it was "unnecessary or undesirable."

But there were indications that the measure would not have such clear sailing when it reached the floor of the Senate. No bill touching on international policy would. Two Senators last week gave a hint of the debate to come. In various ways they questioned the efficacy of Harry Truman's whole program for world peace.

Virginia's Harry Byrd wanted to know, in effect, why the U.S. should try to get along with Russia in the U.N. when it is waging a political war against Russia in Greece and Turkey. Said he: "The time has come to be realistic and to reorganize the United Nations. ... If Russia is an enemy, and persists in being an enemy to free peoples it is better to have her outside the family than inside the family." Let the U.S., he said, submit its Greek-Turkish proposal to U.N. as a challenge to Russia. If Russia vetoes the proposal, then remove the veto. If that means the withdrawal of Russia from U.N., well & good. "Today we have possession of the atomic bombs which give us a source of strength which we will lose if and when these bombs are destroyed or when other nations obtain the secret. Now is the time for a showdown with Russia within the U.N."

Withdraw the Offer. Ohio's Robert Taft, speaking against the confirmation of David Lilienthal as head of the Atomic Energy Commission (see below), let go with the most direct attack yet made on the Baruch plan for international control of the atom (a plan based on the Acheson-Lilienthal report). Said Taft:

"The extraordinary proposal was that there should be set up an international authority on which there was to be no restraint. It was to have strictly international personnel. It was to take charge of all atomic development. . . . This international authority, with international personnel, was to come to this country, take over our Oak Ridge plant and all our plants, and operate them, if you please, with international personnel, Russians perhaps. . . . The authority would be completely independent of the United States. We would have only one voice among many in deciding what its powers should be. ... I think we ought to withdraw our offer immediately. That is my belief."

In his zeal to defeat Lilienthal, Senator Taft made it seem as though a Russian might come over tomorrow to look in on Oak Ridge. The control plan would have to be carried through a number of careful, cautious steps before the U.S. gave up anything.

Senator Taft was opposed by Arthur Vandenberg, who held resolutely to the new position of U.S. bipartisan foreign policy: to exert power wherever necessary to contain Communism and to try to preserve the moral position of a struggling U.N.

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