National Affairs: Dangerous Life

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Questions rattled down on the Administration like hailstones. The bill to implement Harry Truman's recommended aid for Greece and Turkey was already before the House Foreign Affairs Committee. On the other side of Congress, Senator Vandenberg invited one & all to sound off. They did. The interrogation was searching. What, in breadth and in detail, did the President's policy—now embalmed in history as the "Truman Doctrine"—mean?

The question most frequently asked was: Why by-pass U.N.? Did the Truman Doctrine, which promised independent U.S. action to "help free peoples to maintain their free institutions and their national integrity" mean that U.N. was dead, or at the best moribund?

Senators Vandenberg and Connally suggested a preamble to the Greek-Turkish loan legislation which would make it clear that the U.S. was acting only as an agency of U.N. and "in conformity with the principles and purposes of the Charter."

Acting Secretary of State Dean Acheson, defending the Administration's policy, declared: "It may be that at some future time the United Nations will be organized and equipped so as to render emergency aid." The time, he intimated, was not now. "Even if some organ of the United Nations should decide to recommend assistance to Greece and Turkey, it would have eventually to turn primarily to the United States for funds and supplies and technical assistance. Even if the project were not blocked by the objections of certain members of the United Nations, much time would have been lost and time is of the essence."

There to Stay. These words, which described realities, had the grim sound of an epitaph. But the Truman Doctrine might conceivably be U.N.'s salvation.

The doctrine had served notice on the world that the U.S. would undertake forthright action when confronted with expanding Communism. It served notice on Russia that if she entertained ideas of gobbling up more nations, the U.S. was prepared to challenge her. It had raised the hopes of democratic peoples everywhere. Said a high French official: "This will convince Europeans that you are in Europe to stay."

The policy might force a showdown; Russia could conceivably withdraw from U.N. But for all practical purposes Russia has never accepted the fundamental theory of U.N. She has declined to join any of U.N.'s most important specialized agencies (e.g., UNESCO, the World Bank, Refugee, Labor, Food and Agricultural Organizations). She has used U.N. as a debating society, and manipulated her veto power to play power politics.

The strength of U.N. depends, basically, on the U.S. As long as the U.S. supports U.N. and as long as U.S. policies conform to principles of democracy, positive and independent actions in the world will strengthen, not weaken, the world organization of which the U.S. is the most important part.

Said Secretary Acheson: "This is a dangerous life and a dangerous world. I would choose a vigorous attempt to maintain the independence of Greece rather than let it go by default. ... If we do not accede to the [Greek and Turkish] requests ... for aid, there will be a strong conviction that a great deal of our professions are merely words."