The Senators and Representatives talked to high Government officials and the common people alike; they visited factories and farms. They saw war-devastated cities and they examined reconstruction work already under way.

Most of the Congressmen who visited Europe agreed that the Continent needed help.

The House Select Committee on Foreign Aid was named to make a detailed study of Europe. In November 1947 the Congressmen set down six basic elements of a foreign-aid program:

First. The European countries must make vigorous efforts to increase production of food and materials to meet essential domestic needs as well as those of cooperating nations.

Second. The European nations must stimulate trade with all Europe and with other nations.

Third. Other countries besides the United States that are in a position to help Europe should do so.

Fourth. Private initiative should be encouraged to take on activities assumed by European governments during the postwar crisis.

Fifth. The European countries should adopt fiscal, financial, and monetary programs to stop inflation, stabilize exchanges, and generally restore confidence in their currencies.

Sixth. Full publicity should be given to the United States aid by the European countries which received it.

In its considerations the Congress had the advantage of the excellent studies made by three citizens' committees representing all aspects of American life. The groups were appointed by President Truman.

The Resources Committee, headed by Secretary of the Interior Krug, studied foreign aid in relation to America's natural resources. The committee reported in October that the United States had sufficient resources to undertake the foreign-aid program developed by the 16 European nations at their Paris meetings. But the committee warned that this country could not underwrite the European economy indefinitely.

Steel and petroleum represented the biggest problems because of shortages of these items in this country.

The second committee appointed was the Council of Economic Advisers. It also reported in October. The council said that the foreign-aid program contemplated by the 16 European nations was within the productive capacity of the United States.

The council, under the chairmanship of Edwin G. Nourse, warned that some commodities might be in short supply in this country if the foreign-aid plans were adopted. The group decided that export controls, allocations of some commodities for domestic use, efficient transportation, and distribution of goods and the curbing of speculatition and hoarding would be necessary.

The third group also reported in October. It was made up of prominent citizens, under the chairmanship of Secretary of Commerce Harriman.

The Harriman committee concluded that the foreign-aid program was within the over-all limits of the American economy.

Americans had agreed that the European recovery program was necessary. They also agreed that America could afford to help Europe.

But the Europeans' economic crisis was worsening every day. And in October 1947 President Truman realized that Europe needed not only a long-range program but also stop-gap funds to see the Continent through the winter of 1947-48.

Therefore, President Truman summoned Congress to meet in special session, beginning November 17. The purposes of the session were twofold: One, to provide interim aid for France, Italy, and Austria; two, to enact a domestic anti-inflation program and thus maintain the economic strength of this country and preserve its ability to aid the world without doing irreparable injury to our own economic life.

The administration asked for emergency aid for the three countries to see them through the winter. A total of $597,000,000 was requested to help the countries until March 31, 1948. By then it was hoped the long-range European program could be under way.

President Truman declared in his message to Congress on November 17 that Austria, France, and Italy must be helped if their peoples are to survive the coming winter, and if their political and economic systems are not to disintegrate. Exceedingly bad weather has brought on crop failures and fuel shortages, and has caused intense suffering. The food and fuel stocks of these countries are now near the vanishing point. Their peoples are in a dangerously weakened condition, due to years of short rations. Additional medical supplies and facilities are urgently necessary.

Both the Senate and House agreed with the President that these countries needed help immediately. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House Foreign Affairs Committee held extensive hearings.

The Senate committee reported its bill first. After 5 days of floor debate the Senate passed its interim-aid measure on December 1 by the overwhelming vote of 83 to 6.

The House committee reported its measure December 2. The principal difference between the two bills was the inclusion of China as a recipient of aid in the House measure. The Senate had said nothing about China. The House committee authorized only $590,000,000 for the four countries. Of this amount, China would receive $60,000,000.

Dif

The House passed its emergency relief bill December 11. ferences between the House and Senate measures were soon ironed out, with the legislation going to President Truman December 17. The authorization law set aid figures at $597,000,000, including help for China.

Next, the Appropriations Committees considered the amount of money that should be spent for foreign aid. Congress finally agreed December 19 to allot $522,000,000 to France, Italy, and Austria, and $18,000,000 for China.

The emergency aid program passed Congress in substantially the form recommended by President Truman, except for the cuts in appropriations. But this was not important except as a warning of what was to come.

Then, as Congress was completing action on interim aid, the President sent his detailed European recovery program to the House and Senate. This was the plan outlined by the President December 19: First. Congress should authorize $17,000,000,000 in aid to the 16 European countries and western Germany for the period from April

1, 1948, to June 30, 1952. The appropriation for the first 15 months should be $6,800,000,000.

Second. These funds would be used for rehabilitation, not relief. The money would start Europe on its way to genuine recovery.

Third. Agreements should be made between America and the European nations to insure the aid would be used for genuine recovery and not to be used for mere relief or as a dole.

Fourth. American aid should be made available partly in grants and partly in loans, depending on the financial conditions.

Fifth. A new agency, the Economic Cooperation Administration, would be established to run the European recovery program. A special American representative to be appointed in Europe to coordinate the program.

In his state of the Union message January 7, 1948, the President reiterated the administration's belief in the necessity of the European recovery program.

The President said:

I urge the Congress to act promptly on this vital measure of our foreign policyon this decisive contribution to world peace.

Both the House and Senate quickly began work on the legislation to start the wheels of European reconstruction moving.

Weeks of hearings were held in both Houses. The committee sessions were in the democratic tradition. All sides of the question were heard. All citizens and organizations, whether internationalist or isolationist, were given an opportunity to speak.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee reported its bill, the Economic Cooperation Act, late in February. The measure embodied all the fundamentals laid down by President Truman. This was a program for recovery, not relief. The European countries would make every effort to help themselves. America would not step in and run European governments. The United States and Europe were cooperating.

In March the Senate devoted long hours of serious and thoughtful debate to the Marshall plan and every sentence of the foreign-aid measure was explored carefully.

Some isolationists protested that America should not undertake the European recovery program, but the majority of Republicans joined with the Democrats when the Senate voted 68 to 17 for the Marshall plan March 13.

Two other foreign-aid programs were recommended by President Truman in 1948. In February he called for $275,000,000 additional aid for Greece and Turkey and $570,000,000 for China. Both of these programs were in the same cooperative spirit as the European recovery program. The United States would help Greece and Turkey and China if these countries did their utmost to help themselves. These, too, were programs of reconstruction rather than pure relief.

The Senate followed President Truman's recommendations and passed measures authorizing aid to them.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee completed its exhaustive hearings on foreign aid shortly after the Senate passed its European recovery program bill.

And President Truman continued to push for passage of the foreignaid measures. The Communist coup in Czechoslovakia and the approaching Italian elections prompted the President's special message

to Congress March 17. President Truman called for an adequate American defense program coupled with the European recovery program.

The President warned: "Time is now of critical importance."

The House combined the President's three foreign-aid programs in one bill that was passed by a vote of 329 to 74, March 31. Minor differences between the House and Senate bills were ironed out easily, and Congress sent to the President a foreign-aid program more than 2 weeks before the critical Italian elections of April 18.

The results of congressional approval of the administration's plan for helping the war-torn world were immediate. The Italian people turned back the Communists in their important national elections. Democracy was bolstered in France. The tired, careworn faces of the European peoples saw genuine rays of hope.

But the thoughtful program worked out by the best brains of both political parties-a program which Communist Russia fought unceasingly-was sabotaged by isolationists.

Two months after Congress had authorized the Economic Cooperation Administration, the program received a serious set-back.

The House Appropriations Committee voted to cut the first-year appropriation of $5,300,000,000 for the program by more than 25 percent.

And the House approved this action June 3 when it passed the Appropriation Committee's bill by a voice vote. Friends of the European recovery program both here and abroad were dismayed by this reversal of an earlier vote and by the alarming rebirth of isolationism which such action indicated to Americans and to the world.

In one blow all the hard-won gains were wiped out. An isolationist block of die-hard Republicans had seriously weakened our greatest bid for winning a lasting peace.

The Senate realized the importance of President Truman's foreign policy and the hope that it held for world peace. Democratic Senators joined with Republicans to vote nearly the full amount of funds authorized for the foreign-aid program.

But then the House and Senate versions of money for foreign aid had to go to conference. Long hours were spent by the conferees in trying to work out a sensible, adequate appropriation.

The final appropriation represented a victory for America's bipartisan foreign policy. Both the House and Senate voted finally to appropriate more than $5,000,000,000 for the European recovery program during its first year. This amount was substantially what President Truman had requested.

Despite this turn of events the irresponsible action of the House attempting to cut foreign-aid funds by 27 percent still was remembered throughout the world."

World peace still hung precariously as a result of the House action. The starving peoples of Europe wondered whether the ERP would be continued or whether Republican isolationists might triumph in some future attack on it.

ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION

When the Atomic Energy Commission was established in 1946, Congress decided the atom should be kept out of politics. Congress

acted wisely in voting that the problems of atomic science must be handled with extreme care. They believed that the atom always must be considered in a bipartisan atmosphere, especially in this field where leadership is the greatest insurance of our own peace and security. Politics has no place in a subject wherein the very existence of the Nation and the world is at stake.

But in 1948 partisan politics did enter into the realm of atomic energy.

President Truman nominated the present Chairman and the four members of the Atomic Energy Commission for terms of from 1 to 5 years as provided by the laws voted by the Congress. The Chairman is David E. Lilienthal. The other members are Robert F. Bacher, Sumner T. Pike, Lewis L. Strauss, and William W. Waymack.

The legislation setting up the Atomic Energy Commission provided that the Chairman and the four members of the Commission should be named for initial terms of 1 year. Subsequent appointments would be made for terms of from 1 to 5 years to assure continuity in the Commission's policies. Thus the framers of the law had hoped to avoid partisan politics in these appointments. But it was too much to expect that this admirable provision would survive the vicissitudes of a political year.

The five members of the Atomic Energy Commission served well during their initial terms of office. Atomic-energy research made heartening progress and our leadership in science was not seriously challenged. The atomic research program, concerning problems of peace as well as war, is on a firm footing.

However, the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy voted to amend the atomic energy legislation to provide 2-year terms for all members of the Commission. And this only after a bitter controversy drew caustic criticism of the Republican leadership for injecting partisan politics into the problem of the Nation's safety.

During the last hours of the Eightieth Congress the Senate voted to reappoint the Atomic Energy Commissioners for 2-year terms in accordance with the Republican partisan amendments to the Atomic Energy Act.

Thus the vital Atomic Energy Commission was turned into a political plum by the Republican-controlled Congress which was more interested in politics than in the security of America.

During the second session of the Eightieth Congress the Republican leadership made another attempt to turn the Atomic Energy Commission into a partisan agency.

Republican leaders in the Senate sponsored a bill that would require loyalty investigations to be made by the FBI of the five members of the Atomic Energy Commission. The reports of these investigations would be turned over to the Senate under the measure. Then, presumably, the Republicans could turn and twist these reports for political

use.

It should be remembered that the present members of the Atomic Energy Commission have demonstrated their loyalty to the United States by more than a year of great service to the country. Great strides have been made in atomic research under the guidance of these

men.