AID TO MANY LANDS STILL BEING PLANNED BY UNITED STATES

Grey River Argus, 22 May 1947, Page 5

AID TO MANY LANDS STILL BEING PLANNED BY UNITED STATES

Italy, Korea and China’s Needs (Rec. 8.10) WASHINGTON, May 20. Aid for Korea would be requested by Congress, very soon, in the form of appropriations for the costs of the American forces of occupation, said the Secretary of State, General Marshall. There was no plan to ask a separate measure for Korea, as was the case for Greece and Turkey. The State Department and the War Department would ask for two hundred million dollars, of which seventy-eight million dollars would be for rehabilitation, and the rest for the occupation costs, including that for food. There was no immediate prospect of further Korean appropriations, similar to that for Greek and Turkish aid, and that for the 350 million dollars American foreign relief programme. He said that he favoured an urgent, and a prompt, allocation of relief funds for Italy, from the Foreign Relief Programme. General Marshall disclosed that the State Department’s Planning Committee was, at present, carrying out an exhaustive study of the entire economic and political situation in “Europe, the Far East, the Middle East and Ltain America.” General Marshall said that he was giving the Chinese situation his close personal study, in an attempt to find some way of helping China in a manner that could be justified to the American people, and to Congress. He added that whether financial aid for China was forthcoming would depend, largely, on the efficacy of the current Chinese Government organisation. No decision had yet been made concerning the early release of the five hundred million dollars ear-marked bv the U.S. Ex-port-Import Bank as a loan to China.