Soviet’s All-out Bid To Block European Recovery

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 22889, 8 March 1949, Page 5

Soviet’s All-out Bid To Block European Recovery

NEW YORK, Mar. 5.

Russia’s four best allies in the cold war were hunger, poverty, desperation and chaos, said Mr. Paul Hoffman, Economic Co-operation Administrator, today, when speaking at the New York Herald-Tribune forum for high schools. He said the Kremlin was taking desperate measures to block the European recovery programme. The Russians, said Mr. Hoffman, had started sending fifth columns into Italy to stage work stoppages and sabotage. They had invoked the French coal strikes and now the French Communist leaders had asked their fellow countrymen to embrace the Russian invaders if they crossed the French frontier. “Only a man making a last desperate gamble would dare show his hand and purpose so clearly,” he added. Mr. Hoffman said that only when economic chaos had caused the people of the democracies to lose faith in their own institutions were they ready to accept subservience to Moscow. The Marshall Plan countries had achieved an economic understanding that was little short of miraculous. The free nations of Europe were winning the cold war, and the collateral benefits flowing from the success were more important than the recovery itself. "Because the European nations have found economic co-operation of value, the co-operation itself has taken on a new meaning and may have more farreaching implications,” continued Mr. Hoffman. "It may well be that the measures of co-operation necessary to achieve economic recovery will form the foundation for a far grander structure—a permanent close association of the free nations of Europe.”