Are These Handouts Necessary?

March 24, 1952

The whole foreign giveaway program—whether it is labeled “direct military aid,” or “defense support” (the latest euphemism for economic handouts), or Point Four—needs to be completely reexamined. In this task neither Mr. Truman’s message to Congress nor his radio and television appeal to the nation will be found of help. Both appeals were chiefly rhetorical and openly partisan.

Mr. Truman accused anyone who wants to cut his $7,900,000,000 request by even a small amount as “demagoguing in favor of economy.” He resorted to inventing straw men as the only alternatives to his quixotic giveaway schemes. Straw Man No. 1 was to make “premeditated and deliberate war” on Soviet Russia. As no influential group in this country is proposing such a thing, it was recklessly irresponsible for Mr. Truman to feed Communist propaganda by talking as if there were one. Straw Man No. 2 was to “abandon our allies and hole up on this continent.” No influential group is suggesting this either; and it was equally irresponsible for Mr. Truman to give our European allies the false impression that there is such a group and such a proposal.

Neither Senator Taft nor former President Hoover has proposed that we repudiate the Atlantic treaty. And neither of them, nor any other serious person, has proposed that we actually cut off trade and stop buying necessary goods from the European continent. But a responsible body of opinion here has doubted that it is wise or necessary to pour heavy American land forces into Europe in peacetime and to give away as many billions to as many countries as Mr. Truman and his aides recommend. (We have giveaway—i.e., “economic”—missions today in 40 countries.)

Mr. Truman’s message and radio appeal were distinguished by self-righteous rhetoric, gross caricature of opposing views, and a contemptuous absence of facts. He assured the public that his figure of $7,900,000,000 was “not just taken out of the air” but was “the result of many months of careful study.” But in his whole message to Congress he gave not the slightest hint of how the figure was arrived at. How much did the other NATO nations spend, individually and collectively, on defense and other items of their government budgets in the twelve months ending June 30, 1950? In the twelve months ending June 30, 1951? In the current twelve-month period? How much of their own money are they planning to spend for these purposes in the next fiscal year? What is the ratio of these sums to their respective national incomes? And the ratio of their defense to other government expenditures?

Nowhere in a message of 7,000 words devoted solely to the subject did Mr. Truman find room to mention any of these figures. How did our bureaucrats decide how much European arms and goods it is up to us to supply? And above all, how did they decide that American taxpayers had to give these arms and goods to European taxpayers—that the latter just cannot afford to pay for any of these themselves?

When Mr. Truman’s message does venture into the realm of fact, we get a howler: “Europe has moved faster toward integration in the last five years than it did in the previous 500.” This is blandly said at a time when inter-European trade is sunk in currency chaos and tied up in the most vicious network of exchange and import controls in centuries!

Mr. Truman’s message is obscure even on the most basic facts. He is asking for “only” $7,900,000,000, but his budget two months ago set down a total of $10,500,000,000 for foreign aid. Presumably this is still the amount he actually plans to spend on foreign aid in the 1953 fiscal year. Why is there no mention of this fact in his message or radio talk? Again about $7,000,000,000 is already available for foreign aid. If Congress does vote all the new funds requested by the President, then apparently some $15,000,000,000 will be available all together for such aid. Why wasn’t this even mentioned by the President? Surely the subject needs clarification.