Unbruised

Secretary of State George Marshall got two plans for European recovery last week. The first came from a group of Maryland cub scouts, who called to tell him about their own "Junior Marshall Plan" for raising funds to help Europe's children. The other came from Michigan's big, grey Senator Arthur Vandenberg.

Sprawled comfortably in his high-backed committee chair, Chairman Vandenberg was obviously feeling pleased with his contribution. After more than a month of hearings and five days of closed-door conferences, his Foreign Relations Committee had approved, by unanimous vote, the first draft of the European Recovery Program. The job had been done without a major fight.

New Timetable. The news was good enough to impress even hardboiled Capitol newsmen. Vandenberg's logic and persuasion, plus the force of public opinion,* had brought ERP to the point of Senate debate unbruised by its first big test. Chairman Vandenberg deserved the congratulations which the newsmen showered down on him.

On the two major points in dispute, Van had produced a statesmanlike compromise. As the Administration had requested, Congress would be morally committed to continue ERP through June 1952. As Congress had insisted, the commitment would not be an ironclad guarantee. The initial sum for ERP would be cut from $6.8 billion to $5.3 billion, but the time to spend it would also be cut from 15 months to twelve. Thus the overall appropriation for ERP would be reduced, but not the monthly rate of spending. The 12-month limitation would also give the newly elected 1949 Congress an early chance to review ERP's progress on the basis of actual experience.

The administration of ERP would fall somewhere between George Marshall's insistence on out-&-out State Department control and opponents' demands for a bipartisan corporation. The committee compromise followed the lines of the Atomic Energy Commission, with a $20,000-a-year administrator of Cabinet rank, backed up by a bipartisan advisory board of twelve men chosen from outside the government. The administrator would have complete authority to make grants and loans (through the Export-Import Bank), would be responsible to the State Department only for mutual exchange of information.

To handle ERP's business abroad, a mission headed by a liaison officer of minister's rank would be sent to each participating country, supervised by a roving, $25,000-a-year ambassador-at-large. Congress would have a 14-member watchdog committee chosen from both Houses, which Vandenberg hoped Massachusetts' Representative Christian Herter would head.

Careful Course. The committee bill steered a careful course between what Europe could accept and what the U.S. felt it needed as assurance that ERP would not be a running drain on the U.S. taxpayer. The bill did not attempt to ram conditions down Europe's throat. It simply expressed "the hope . . . that these countries through a joint organization will exert sustained common efforts which will speed the achievement of that economic cooperation which is essential for lasting peace and prosperity."

The bill strengthened that hope by making continuing U.S. aid conditional on "continuity of cooperation" abroad. It called for a multi-lateral treaty, with the U.S. binding participants to the pledges of self-help and mutual aid laid down in the Paris report. Bilateral pacts with individual nations would commit each participant to 1) increase production (particularly in steel, coal, transport and food); 2) stabilize its currency; 3) cut tariff walls; 4) dig up hoarded assets; and 5) make strategic raw materials available to the U.S.

All aid would be stopped for any country which reneged on its treaty agreements. It would also be cut off if any country diverted U.S. goods from their intended uses, or if it "seriously impairs the economic stability of the United States."

Changing Tune. The bill would not answer all objections to ERP. Bob Taft still thought the size of the appropriation should be cut. Indiana's Homer Capehart wanted to handle all foreign aid through an international RFC. Nevada's George Malone was still laboring doggedly to kill ERP outright. House committeemen were still to be heard from.

But by last week ERP's fidgeting parents were feeling almost as good as Arthur Vandenberg. Looking over the committee bill, State Department advisers happily agreed that it would do the job.

* Wrote Kansas' Senator Clyde Reed to his constituents last week: "If the Marshall Plan should fail of passage . . . the Republican candidates in November would not carry a state east of Ohio or any state on the Pacific coast. Under such circumstances, defeat for the Republican Party in November would be a blow from which it would be very difficult to recover."

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