ARMAMENTS: MAP Moves

The billion-dollar Military Assistance Program (MAP) for the North Atlantic Treaty powers was finally moving. Almost a year after the signing of the grand alliance in Washington (April 4, 1949), the first shipment—48 U.S. Navy fighter and bomber planes for France—was made from Norfolk, Va. this week. From now on, the flow of U.S. arms to Europe would be steady and, the Western world hoped, steadying.

Biggest question mark on the receiving end was France. Although Premier Georges

Bidault had won an impressive vote of confidence in the Assembly (393-186) on the Communist-opposed anti-sabotage measure, the government's Red troubles were not over. Before the final vote, Communist deputies put on a riotous show that was even more violent and abusive than last week's. Cracked a Foreign Office official who must attend this week's debate on ratification of the Franco-American military aid agreement: "Where could I borrow a suit of armor?"

At week's end the French strike situation eased; longshoremen were going back to work. Still, the Communists repeated their boast that French dock workers would not handle military shipments from the U.S. when they arrived. Any obstruction at the ports, the government warned in a radio broadcast, will be met by "the patriotism of the French and the force of the law."