Shipping the Oars

What lights does Congress steer by? By & large, the Senate's foreign-policy course had been set by the stars of mature statesmanship. Despite a few erratic zigzags, the House had followed the Senate's lead. Then last week a majority of House members suddenly abandoned the charts and seemed to head for the rocks.

In the face of previous commitments by both chambers of Congress, the House lopped off more than $2 billion from funds already authorized for ECA and other foreign aid. The cuts were made by New York's John Taber, chairman of the Appropriations Committee, a man always vigilant to pare a cheese. He sliced $170 million off China aid, $75 million off aid to Greece and Turkey, $150 million off occupation funds, and $1,745 million off ECA.

"Gentle Little Shove." Responsible Congressmen from both sides of the aisle protested in vain. Some of the reductions were made by extending the spending period for ECA and China aid from twelve to 15 months. Hoping to restore the twelve-month spending period, Illinois Republican Everett Dirksen warned: "If we fail in this first year we shall fail for good . . . This cut may be the gentle little shove that may throw the government of France into the ashcan." Minority Leader Sam Rayburn, his bald head glistening under the hot House lights, pleaded: "Let us not do too little. Let us carry out to those people who want to be our allies the promise they think we made to them a few months ago."

But the economizers were adamant. Barked John Taber: "The architects of this world-wide relief program have no definite plan." Stubbornly ignoring the months of conferences and hearings, the volumes of reports, and the testimony of such authorities as ECAdministrator Paul Hoffman and Under Secretary of State Bob Lovett, he protested that evidence in favor of the program was just "the result of a series of after-dinner conversations in which Administration economists let their imaginations run wild."

Shouting their approval, the House bowled over the Dirksen amendment 148 to 113. Then, without even the formality of a record vote, it confirmed John Taber's cuts to the last dollar.

"A Black Day." As the news reached Europe, the Communist press broke out in jubilant headlines. Pro-U.S. papers were badly shaken. Wrote Rome's Il Tempo: "Whatever happens in the Senate, the harm has been done . . . Europe will live in perpetual fear that from one moment to the next America will ship her oars."

Vacationing in Sun Valley, Secretary of State George Marshall stated grimly: "The reduction proposed would, I consider, alter the European program from one of reconstruction to one of mere relief."

But Congress was no longer listening to General Marshall with its old respect. Said Colorado's Eugene Milliken, "He's gotten into the habit of delivering ultimatums to Congress. He takes the same attitude toward Congress as he would to a striker who fails to put the proper polish on his boots."

Probably the angriest man in Washington was Senator Arthur Vandenberg, who would now have to undertake the job of repairing the House blunder. He immediately asked to make his views known before the Senate Appropriations Committee this week. There was little doubt that he would be able to restore most of the cuts, and with them the damage to Republican prestige.

It would be harder to restore the damage to U.S. prestige abroad. Though most foreign nations had begun to understand some of the exasperating facts of U.S. political life, they could not help feeling that U.S. policy was indeed steered by the lights of each passing ship.

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