Evening star., 1950-01-29
Teeth for the Pact

NOW tnaC all the legal technlcal1tieS
have been met, our Military Assistance
Program will begin to move into high gear
in the weeks Immediately ahead. Under
it, eight of the twelve nations pledged to
mutual defense in the North Atlantic
Treaty will receive from us, during the
coming year, about $1,O0O0OO,00o in arms
shipments of varying types and quantities
classified as a strict secret.
Not secret, however, is what this historic
enterprise is designed to accomplish.
Stated simply, its purpose is one of self
preservation, a fundamental compulsion
in the life of nations as well as in the life
of individual men. Far from being often
sive in character, it is meant solely to
right the balance of power in such way
as to enable the Western Europeans, and
the Western world as a whole, to defend
and maintain their peace and freedom
against the threat of direct and indirect
Soviet aggression.
In effect, the arms shipments (which
will go to Belgium, Denmark, France, Italy,
Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway and
Britain in accord with the conditions
contained in the agreements they have
just signed with us) will give extra teeth
to the Atlantic pact. In other words, they
put steel behind the decisions reached in
Paris last month by the Defense Com
mittee of the signatory nations. Those
decisions cover Cd active planning for
mutual protection, (2) coordination of
regional programs within the alliance, 90
provisions for the production and supply
of ornaments and (4 the formulation of
strategy for an OVERALL integrated defen-
sive system for Western Europe.
In keeping with the law creating the
military assistance program, President
Truman has now proclaimed his satisfac-
tion with the recommendations made by
the twelve-nation North Atlantic Council
for defense integration. That fact, to-
gether with the fact that the recipient
countries have signed the related agree
ments, clears away the last technical hur-
dies to the actual shipments of ornaments.
Accordingly, the shipments will start NOV
ing across the Atlantic in mounting volume
as fast as loading permits.
With typical truth-butchering distortion,
the Kremlin has repeatedly dashed out
against both the Atlantic pact and our
ornaments aid as outward signs of a
gigantic imperialistic plot to unleash
new war against the Soviet Union and its
satellites. But nothing could be clearer
than the threefold fact that the pact is
purely defensive, that our military assist
ance will obviously be much too small for
offensive operations, and that the West
would not now be engaged in any part Of
this enterprise if the Russians had not
made it imperative.
After all, in very real sense, the Rus
slams are themselves the creators of this
situation. BY maintaining the largest
army in history, by Systematically
blocking every peace-making effort, and
by making clear, through repeated aggres-
sions, that they seek to dominate the whole
of Europe, they have literally driven the
nations of the West into forming an alli-
ance for common survival. That alliance
is an absolute essential Without it, the
free world would face the ever-present
danger of being overwhelmed, in piece
meal fashion, by the Red tide.