The Rabbit and the Silk Hat

To a world still teetering on the edge of famine, the United States, at the recent UNRRA Council meeting in New York, proposed that charity to individual nations should supplant international cooperation. At the meeting American diplomats turned down all attempts to rejuvenate June-dead UNRRA with the explanation that in their view the need for international relief agencies no longer exists. The only move toward future planning U. S. delegates approved was the formation of a toothless Council of Ten which may map out world food needs, but can't move a grain of wheat.

Official American terms to indigent nations state that those who want to pass the hat must really need the money, keep a complete accounting of supplies received, must hand out aid to the politically unsavory as well as to the faithful, and finally must keep man-power where Washington thinks it belongs--on the farm, not in the army. Under such conditions approval for relief supplies could conceivably depend on the quality of a secretary's morning cup of coffee. Even the three countries Under Secretary of State Dean Acheson publicly stated would probably need aid--Italy, Austria, and Greece--don't fit the bill. Of the three, only Italy has not been charged with manipulating food for political ends, and the Italians themselves don't think distribution has been efficient or even kept entirely away from the black market.

The final joker is the lack of money available to the State Department for financing foreign commodity buying. With the Import-Export Bank holding a bare minimum of funds, any amount of relief appropriations would have to run a Congressional gauntlet. An economy-minded Republican Capitol Hill can be expected to cut to ribbons any such grant, especially since it is foreseen that some of the nations will have to receive outright gifts.

To those abroad it must seem that the United States is playing both ends against the middle. Reports of low flour barrels in Austria which has only enough wheat to last until February at the present rate of consumption, serve to emphasize the necessity for action. Since the State Department was good enough to propose giving away money it does not have, it should certainly be glad to reveal how it expects to perform this minor miracle. Revelation of such a feat would prove to hungry Europeans that Kris Kringle is more than a wraith.