"The Day Will Come"

It was the luncheon hour; only a dozen Senators lolled at their seats as Connecticut's Brien McMahon spoke. "The day will come," he said, "when the Soviet Union will achieve atomic weapons. When that day will be, no man knows. But that it will come is as certain as that I stand on the floor of the Senate today." McMahon was reciting the arguments for the Administration's $1,314,010,000 military-aid program.

But 21 hours before the Senate was to learn that McMahon's prophecy was cold, disturbing fact, the fate of the arms plan was still far from certain. Sober, economy-minded Walter George of Georgia, trying to cut the $1 billion appropriation for the Atlantic pact nations by $500 million, argued doggedly that the U.S. could not run the risk of bleeding itself white for Europe. "To the extent that we weaken America," he declared, "to the extent that we weaken the strength of our arm, we undoubtedly cut the life out of the whole North Atlantic community."

The Task. Michigan's ailing Arthur Vandenberg and New York's John Foster Dulles, who had forced the Administration to trim its demand into acceptable form, met his measured argument with measured reply. "If it is properly handled, it can be the greatest economy measure which this country has ever adopted," said Dulles. "Let us not lose our perspective," Vandenberg urged. "The objective is . . . defense for the common cause, this common cause, among other things, being the defense of the United States." Old Tom Connally, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, explained: "The North Atlantic Treaty and the military-assistance program are designed to combine might with right."

As the time for the vote neared, Oregon's Wayne Morse, his back severely wrenched in a racing accident, was carried into the Capitol on a stretcher and appeared in the Senate in a wheelchair to cast his vote for the bill. The Administration was rallying every last supporter. In the end, George's proposed $500 million cut was defeated by a comfortable margin of 46 to 32.

The Tools. Then, still 18 hours before news of Russia's advance to the atomic bomb, the Senate approved the arms bill, 55 to 24, allocating $1 billion for eight Atlantic pact partners in Europe, $211 million for Greek-Turkish aid, $27 million for Korea, Iran and the Philippines. Also approved: $75 million for aid to China, to be spent at the discretion of the President.

A House-Senate committee quickly approved the Senate's bill, agreeing to restore nearly $500 million sliced from the legislation on its first run in the House. Confronted with a new and persuasive argument, the full House seemed certain to vote the funds necessary to put the Atlantic pact into operation.

With the Senate's passage of the aid bill came word of the President's first choice as director of the arms-for-Europe program: 56-year-old James Bruce, ex-Maryland stock farmer and international banker, who recently resigned as U.S. ambassador to Argentina. If he takes the $16,000-a-year job, Bruce will direct the flow and placement of U.S. weapons in Europe as ECAdministrator Paul G. Hoffman now directs Marshall aid.

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