THE CONGRESS: To Do the Needful

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The Administration's $1.45 billion military-aid program was a queer-looking weapon; not even an expert could tell whether it was designed to scatter birdshot or shoot bear. That was the sensible objection raised to it by many Congressmen who could not be dismissed as isolationists. As drawn, the bill would give Harry Truman authority to send U.S. arms to any nation in the world—or even to any political faction in any nation.

Meeting in joint session and behind closed doors last week, the Senate's Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees coldly informed the Administration that if the bill was to have any chance at all, it would have to be redrafted.

Reluctantly, Acheson agreed to think it over. For a week he had sent his most eloquent lieutenants up Capitol Hill to argue for the bill exactly as it stood. Even General George Marshall had come out of retirement to give his measured, unequivocal assurance that the arms program stood foursquare with EGA and the Atlantic Treaty.

Harry Truman himself was not the least dismayed by congressional objections. In his best "who-me?" manner, the President told his press conference that he wasn't at all concerned with whether he got all the blank-check power the bill gave him. He would be delighted if Congress worked out such details to suit itself.

Withdrawing the offending sections, the Administration produced a new measure which carefully specified the destination of all U.S. arms. The Atlantic Treaty nations would get $1.16 billion worth, Greece and Turkey would get $211 million, $27.6 million more would be divided between Iran, Korea and the Philippines. Any transfer of U.S. military stocks would be subject to a veto by the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

This tightening up of a loosely drawn bill did not answer the reservations of such economizers as Georgia's Senator Walter George. But it was designed to fit the major objections of Republicans Arthur Vandenberg and John Foster Dulles. With their support, the prospects for some kind of arms program this year looked perceptibly brighter. Said Dulles: "There remain some problems. However, I think we are now in a good way to do the needful quickly."