Evening star., 1951-12-30
End of the Marshall Plan

Today, six months ahead of the closing date
originally fixed by Congress, the Marshall Plan
comes to a formal end So, too does the Eco
nomic Cooperation Administration. Absorbing
most of the latters personnel, together with its
residual functions, the new Mutual Security
Agency now takes over. Henceforth our foreign
aid program will be chiefly military in character
"a program designed primarily to enable our
allies abroad, particularly the free Europeans to
participate effectively in great system of COM
mon defense against the threat of Red aggression.
If that threat were non-existent, if there
were no war in Korea, if the Iron Curtain were
not reality, If the Kremlin and It's satellites
were not armed to the teeth and pursuing
menacing policy everywhere in the world, our
Nation today would not be faced with the pros
pect OF having to pour out more billions in aid
through the MSA-after having poured out
almost $12 billion through the ECA For what
we have spent on the Marshall Plan during the
past three years and nine months-a sum which
the recipients have matched with SO billion in
counterpart funds of their own-would have
been enough by now, to restore most of free
Europe to self-Supporting vigor had the Soviet
Union chosen to follow peaceful, cooperative
course instead OF course that has imposed
massive rearmament on the economies of the
West.
Yet even though it is depressing to see how
the Kremlin's policy has thus forced continual
ton of American aid-this time mainly in the
military field-our own country and all the
participants in the project have good reason to
look back with great pride on what has been
accomplished by the European recovery program
as administered by the ECA Back in June 1947,
when General Marsha-then Secretary of State
first outlined the plan in his historic speech at
Harvard free ElIrOno iOcudno
the verge of economic and political collapse as
result OF the wars ravages. The picture was so
dark, in fact, that there seemed then to be ample
ground for the fear that nothing less than an
eleventh-hour miracle would be needed to keep
the Kremlin-drected Red tide from sweeping
westward clear to the English Channel.
Fortunately, the miracle happened land how
much grimmer todays world would be had it
not happenedD. Under the Marshall Plan, the
descent into chaos was quickly checked and
there then began a steady comeback to economic
strength-a magnificent recovery now trans
latabe into such remarkable European statistics
as the following: u) Industrial production, in
Guiding doubling of steel output, 64 per cent
above 1947 and Al per cent above prewar 1899;
(2) agricultural production, "a per cent above
1947 and per cent above 1889, and 90 gross
national productive total sum of all goods and
services produced-up almost Is per cent in less
than four years, or is per cent increase over
the level before the war. And comparable
expansion is the goal for the next five years
But this is only part of the picture of the
Marshall Plans accomplishments. 1t is not
possible in short space to give even sketchy
outline of the projects significance in terms of
such collateral effects as those that have en-
couraged freer trade in Europe and numerous
steps toward economic and political integration
Benef1cent revolutionary trends have plainly
been set in motion by it. The enterprise though
not perfect, unquestonably has been one of the
best inspired and most constructive in history.
Today, therefore, as the ECA passes from the
scene, all who have contributed to it have right
to feel proud. Certainly, if the Mutual Security
Agency achieves a similar measure of success,
the free world will be much more than match
for the Kremn