In the U.S. Senate this week, Michigan's Arthur Vandenberg rose to present, "in the name of peace, stability, and freedom," the Economic Cooperation Act of 1948, more familiarly known as ERP.
Vandenberg's baroque oratorical style was scarcely equal to his urgent sense of history. But his long and detailed presentation had a ponderous impressiveness. Said he solemnly: "[This plan] is the final product of eight months of more intensive study by more devoted minds than I have ever known to concentrate upon any other one objective in all my 20 years in Congress. ... If it fails, we have done our...