OPINION DIVIDED

Evening Star, Issue 26042, 5 March 1947, Page 7

OPINION DIVIDED

AMERICAN AID TO GREECE

" CAN’T BE EXPECTED TO REHABILITATE WHOLE WORLD "

WASHINGTON, March 3. The Senate, by 64 votes to 20, approved a resolution reducing President Truman’s 37,500,000,000d0l Budget by 4,500,000,000d01. The measure, will now go to the House, which previously voted to reduce the Budget by 6,000,000,000d01. The Senate resolution pledged that at least 2,600,000,000dol will be used to reduce the National Debt! < , Senator Taft, chairman of the Republican Policy Committee, appealed to Congress not to abandon the economy drive in face of reports that the Unted States would be compelled to take over Britain’s financial commitments in Greece.

Senator Baldwin (Republican, Connecticut) told the Senate, “ This action will establish the fact that we cannot be bled white.”

Senator Fulbright (Democrat, Arkansas) ■ voted against the reduction. He declared that public reaction to the Senate’s reduction . would be that America was not going to undertake ariy obligation respecting Greece. In the House of Representatives several. Republicans spoke strongly against America being expected to rehabilitate the whole world. Others feared that aid to. Greece would lead to armed intervention and pointed out that millions of dollars had been poured into France, Yugoslavia, and China without those countries being farther from Communism than two years ago.

The reported inclination of the State Department to provide 35j0,000,000do! in support of the Greek Government on condition that British troops remained in Greece was hailed in the House by a member of the influential Foreign Affairs Committee, Mr Chester Merrow (Republican, New Hampshire), as “a show of firmness and realism in our foreign policy.” He added, “ I hope America will do everything in her power to assist Greece and aid Great Britain in Greece, and thus help to prevent Communism from controlling a strategic Mediterranean country.”

iMr Jesse Wolcott (Republican, Michigan), chairman of the House Banking Committee and- Republican Leader of the House supporters of the loan to Britain in 1946, interviewed, said that everything within reason should bp done to stabilise Greek economy. “ The situation is very serious. and the United States must give a lot of thought to extension of the. iron curtain,” he said.

Reuter’s Washington correspondent reports that Mr George Marshall,, on the eve of his departure for Moscow, conferred for two hours with members

of the House Appropriations Committee in an effort to gain economic support' for the objectives of American foreign policy. The popibility was discussed of America taking over British financial commitments in Greece. Senator Richard Russel (Democrat, Georgia), interviewed, declared : tliat it would be cheaper for the United States to absorb Great Britain into the United States than “ to go on paying the freight for them.”