Worm in the Apple

Russian moves to gain a voice in top-level discussion of the Marshall proposals, plus President Truman's efforts to begin implementing the plan with concrete discussions of its domestic effects, all point to a rapidly developing situation for which a basic foundation has hardly been laid.

The motive power for the whole effort will be money, American money, and recent statements envisage amounts running into the tens of billions. These plans must face the scrutiny of a Congress which had a hard time swallowing the British loan, and is constantly tightening its purse strings. Nor will the recent squabbles with the President improve the chances of a program which must be considered administration-inspired, even with a non-partisan Secretary of State at the helm. The proposals will only too likely involve partisan politics, an inescapable danger with 1948 elections already tugging at the parties. Only a minor miracle could pull the plan from the clutch of politicians zeus fully reaching for campaign fodder.

The dangers of an East-West clash scuttling the chances for the Marshall proposals, so far as the total European economy is concerned, is great. But the greater danger is the far more dangerous, and more probable, chance that the plans will never win Capitol Hill, or the nation. There is the possibility that the voters, if sufficiently aroused, could exert enough pressure to obtain the money necessary to implement the proposals the President's advisers, and the European statesmen, are considering; but the plan must be sold first, and few real attempts in that direction have been made. To convince a people already groaning under their tax load that even more gifts abroad are not only necessary, but desirable, is a tall order, and there can be no better time to start than now.