THE NATION: Ultimate Decay

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Harry Truman is not a man who wrestles doggedly with his problems. He hits them and apparently expects them to drop.When they don't, he hits them again.

Last week he struck out in favor of his foreign-aid program. In two messages to Congress and in a broadcast speech (see below), he made his position clear, but did not stick around to deal with congressional or public reaction. He took off for a work-rest vacation at Key West.

The final Truman message to Congress was notable for a prediction. If the Mutual Security program succeeds, it will be followed by the "ultimate decay of the Soviet slave world." As a goal, this ultimate decay is certainly preferable to the dream that the world can be brought into a delicate balance which will permit the "peaceful coexistence" of Communism and the systems which Communism is dedicated to destroy.

Yet ultimate decay is a hope, not a program. The Truman-Acheson plan is still purely defensive. It seeks to limit the enemy's power to advance, but it develops no drive to push him back. It leaves the political initiative in the hands of the enemy.

The Communists, too, believe in ultimate decay—of the West. They do not sit back and wait for it to happen; they do all in their power to bring about and speed up any force that may weaken the free world.

What the President had to say about foreign aid will be accepted as making sense, as far as it goes. Trouble is that it apparently goes on forever—or until the enemy decides to step up the pressure and make necessary even larger expenditures by the U.S.

Ultimate decay is based on the assumption that time runs in favor of the free world. It has not done so during the Korean truce talks, where the enemy has grown while the U.N.'s relative strength has decayed. In Asia generally, it is not the Communist position that is decaying. In Europe, the rate of Communist decay is not as rapid as the rate of freedom's decay in the Far East.