No Easy Way

The U.S. had stopped kidding itself. The hard facts were plain enough now: dollars alone would not stop the Russians. But realization was one thing. Doing something about it was another. The urgent question for the U.S. now was: Where do we go from here?

In Washington there was still sharp disagreement. The Administration had not yet denned the point at which the U.S. might have to use force or watch all its policies go down the drain. The military had. They argued that the U.S. should draw a definite line, to be defended with troops, guns and planes, and flatly warn the Soviet Union that it would cross that line at its peril. The risks were obvious. And what if the Soviet forces never stepped across the line but simply outflanked it, as in Czechoslovakia?

The State Department, weighing the military argument, still clung to the hope that ERP plus diplomacy might be enough. Privately, the highest Cabinet officers pleaded with legislators for universal military training because of its "moral effect on the Russians." Their argument was full of contradictions. One top administrator summed them up: "We are sure Russia doesn't want war any more than the U.S. but she has set in motion forces which she cannot control."

What, then, could the U.S. do? On one point the State Department and the military could agree: economic aid must be supported by some kind of military help and vice versa. An example of what that meant came this week from Brussels, where Britain and France seemed ready to join with Benelux in a military as well as economic alliance (see INTERNATIONAL). With full U.S. backing, such a pact might finally draw a firm line between the uncertain West and the all-too-certain East.

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