Monday, May. 26, 1947

Crack in the Front

The current worry of the Administration was not military but economic strength. Strategic use of economic power was the way the Administration intended to wage the conflict with Communism. To that end the Administration had asked for aid to Greece and Turkey, and for $350 million for foreign relief. With these token forces the Administration could make cautious advances into positions on the economic front. Those positions could gradually be stabilized. But last week the front cracked right in its center. Germany faced a new food crisis (see FOREIGN NEWS).

Part of the fault was the Germans'. Part of it was a savage winter. Part of the fault was America's, which had fallen behind by about a week's supply in its deliveries of food. But the new crack and the panic in Germany pointed up the instability of. Western Democracy's whole front. Around the world the margin of economic safety was thin.

In military war, onetime Chief of Staff George Marshall had learned to expect the unexpected. To prepare for it he had put State Department economists to work on a vast survey of the reconstruction needs of all Western Europe from Norway to Greece. With that kind of intelligence, Secretary Marshall hoped he would be able to meet the crises of an economic war. He would be able to meet them if the nation would back him.

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