AMERICA'S CHOICE IS THE MARSHALL PLAN OR WAR

Wanganui Chronicle, 17 January 1948, Page 5

AMERICA'S CHOICE IS THE MARSHALL PLAN OR WAR

Received 6.15 p.m. WASHINGTON, Jan. 15 The Secretary for the Anny, Mr. Kenneth Royall, warned the Senate Foreign Relations Committee today that the United States had a choice between the Marshall Plan and immediate peacetime conscription to rebuild her fighting forces.

Giving evidence on the European recovery programme, he told the committee he would be lacking in candour if he faile4 to put those alternatives squarely before Congress in its consideration of the European programme. Voluntary enlistments and the present 11,000 million dollars annual rate of American military spending would be inadequate to meet the situation if the United States let the European nations collapse into Communism.

The Secretary of Defence (Mr. James Forrestal) told the House Foreign Affairs Committee if the Marshall Plan was rejected the United States, might have to spend 17,000,000,000 dollars a year for arms—a slim originally asked by the Administration for the full period of the European recovery programme. Mr. Forrestal emphasised that Ihe plan’s purpose was to prevent war, not to restrain or dominate any group of nations.