Evening star., 1949-08-21

dIlllS cIlIdl W Ill 1SCC, dlIQ III 4O14
Icast majorities against the lend
, lease bill and further revisions of
the Neutrality Act. Political unity
on all measures to beat the Axis
powers, however, came abruptly
with Pearl Harbor.
But the two parties have been
, most united on foreign policy
: measures aimed at communism
. For example. a majority of Repub-
, licans in both houses opposed the
British loan, in 1946. but in the
7 wake of President Truman's i'm
passioned enunciation of the Tru-
, man doctrine, early in 1947, Re-
, publicans supported the admins
, tration on the Greek Turkish aid
, bill, 35 to II in the Senate and 127
to "a in the House. In 194S
Senate Republicans voted for the
European Recovery Program au-
thorization bill, 81 to 13, and in
the House, 181 to 81. BY this
J time, Senator Taft's increasing
stature in his party. and his
tendency to challenge Vanden-
berg on foreign policy matters,
had begun to show. Taft's amend
ment to cut down the appropria-
ton authorization by over one
billion dollars received the support
of % Senate Republicans. while
"a followed Vandenberg's lead in
opposing it.
Treaty Started Unrest
When charges were made that
the United States had made a
move to undermine the effective
ness of the U. N. by bypassing it
with the Greek-Turkish aid bill.
it was Senator Vandenberg who
quickly sponsored a face-saving
amendment giving recognition to
the interests of the U. N. in the
Greek Turkish situation. He acted
also as trouble e-shooter in the ERP
debate, smoothing its road by per-
suading the White House to aban-
don its request for a four-and "a
half-year authorization of funds.
The momentum of these
achievements of bipartisanship
carried the North Atlantic alli-
ance through the Senate, but no
one could ignore the signs of
growing unrest. A number of
world minded Republicans warned
they were supporting the treaty
in the interest Of hipartisafiship,
but with the agSarest doubts"
adding they fearel ~ vas q step
toward war. nots peace. Even
Senator Vandenberg found him
self unable to go along with the
subsequent arms-aid program in
its entirety. The rare spectacle
). of Senator Vandenberg challeng-
ing the Secretary of States views
on foreign policy occurred dur
ing hearings on this military aid
bill, with Dean Acheson stanchly
resisting Senator Vandenberg's
proposal for an interim arms pro-
gram.
I'm the state of the world
today I should not want to take
responsibility for delay" Mr..
Acheson declared. To which the
Republican foreign policy leader
replied coolly: Il am willing to
be shown that you are correct" +"
That Senator Vandenberg was
never fully convinced of the i'm
mediate urgency of Acheson's en-
tire arms program was shown a
few days later when the Michi-
gan veteran joined with Senator
Dulles in moving to cut almost
$161 600, 900 from the $1,450, ,000,-
900 arms appropriation, and in
sponsoring further compromise
amendments. This seemed to
mirror mounting suspicion
among Republican Senators that
the administration has lately been
taking the bipartisan role of the
minority party too much for
granted, relegating it to a rub
iber-stamp position; and also the
suspicion that the cry Of "wolf"
or more appropriately bear"
in this case-has been employed
by the military and the State De-
pratment to frighten the law
makers into compliance.
Other Troubles Ahead ~
European observers fear that
such deception or misrepresenta-
ton may we'll follow the pattern
of the old fable, with Congress
eventually, failing to respond to
genuine shouts of emergency"
and "crisis."
There are other shoals ahead
for American bipartisan foreign
policy. The Republicans were
willing to take credit for cooper
tive effort in past measures that
helped lead to the recession of
communism in Italy. France and
Greece, and the bolstering of the
European economy, but they are
showing no inclination to share
responsibility for China. Many
of them, in addition, have been
clamoring for diplomatic recog-
milton of Franco Spain. More
over, legislators of both major
political parties, aware that for
eign policy embraces more than
4 anti-communism, have shown in
lcreasing concern over the admin
tistration's program in Germany. !,
4 They point to the ofninous re-
! lsurgence of former Nazis in po-
lsitions of authority. to the swing
to the right in the recent elec-
tions, to the open defiance Of
their conquerors by anti-Semitic
rabble-rousers in the Western
zone, to the return Of the Ruhr
to German hands, and to the
] failure of the Western Allies to
break up the giant War-making
cartels.
Deaf to Warnings