ERP's Anchor

One after another the gleaming staff cars and Volkswagen rolled up to the dirty, grey, four-story building in Frankfurt. Upstairs on the top floor, across the worn leather top of a huge, oval table, the commanders of the U.S. and British occupation zones faced Western Germany's leading political figures. Then came the long-expected announcement.

It was a clear, unequivocal answer to Soviet attempts to scuttle the European Recovery Program. For the 40 million Germans of Bizonia's eight states, General Lucius D, Clay, the U.S. commander, outlined a new form of economic government. The new government would have a two-house legislature, a six-member cabinet, a chief executive. It would have a central bank to issue currency and control credit. Its powers would be exercised through economic courts backed up by occupation armies. The goal: a beefing up of Bizonia's limping production. "These are proposals," said Clay, "not a dictate."

The next day, the Germans accepted the offer with few objections. But their polite applause for the plan was punctuated by brickbats from other quarters.

"The Frankfurt Betrayal of German Unity," screamed one Russian zone paper. "A Black Day for Germany," said another. In Berlin, plans were laid for a meeting of the Soviet-controlled All German People's

Congress to consider countermeasures. The U.S. and British commanders were prepared for the charges. "Frankfurt," said General Clay, "definitely will not be a Western German capital. It will merely be the seat of a strengthened economic and financial administration."

The need for the new economic plan was underlined by a crisis which mushroomed 150 miles to the north. Hungry Ruhr workers began a series of food strikes; at Solingen. Essen, Duesseldorf, Muehlheim, and then in Munich in the U.S. zone, workers laid down their tools. Food distribution had been bumbled. Local German governments paid scant attention to the food quotas set up by the present bizonal Economic Council, which was powerless to enforce its orders. The new economic courts, invested with power superior to the individual states, would be able to prosecute and penalize the state governments for noncooperation.

By next spring, General Clay hoped, the new plan--and Bizonia's production--would be rolling. An important anchor had been planted for the future stability of the European Recovery Program.

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