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Our Alternative. From the sands of Palm Beach, the New York Times's Arthur Krock reported the uneasiness of a group of men with whom he talked one night. Among them were Joseph P. Kennedy, onetime ambassador to Great Britain, and Bernard Baruch. They saw a U.S. foreign policy leading to prodigal spending, national bankruptcy and destruction of the very democratic system which the policy sought to protect. Kennedy doubted that such investments as Truman recommended would ever succeed in stopping Communism's spread. The poverty-stricken peoples of the world, he thought, were bound to try out Communism, if only because of its glittering promises.
Kennedy had his own proposal. Let
Communism spread, meanwhile keep the U.S. fat. After the little nations had a bellyfull of Stalin's totalitarianism they would renounce it and rush joyfully to the U.S. The argument had a faint early 1941 ring.
The Way to Catastrophe. Further questions and objections pointed up risks which were moral as well as economic. Human nature being what it is, U.S. financial intervention might earn America the resentment, even the hate of beneficiaries. The program opened up a road with no visible end. Along that road were other nations in almost as desperate straits as Greece. Who would be next to need U.S. help?
The $400 million recommended for Greece and Turkey was only a down payment on a program which some experts estimated would cost $4,000,000,000 before the U.S. could even be reasonably sure of its final success.
Russia might stage an astute political retreat, while Communist propaganda would tap-tap on the U.S. conscience. Moscow indicated the line. Said Izvestia, in a bland and self-righteous editorial: "What is such monopolistic 'American responsibility' but a smoke screen for plans of expansion? Dilations to the effect that the United States is 'called upon to save' Greece and Turkey from expansion on the part of the so-called 'totalitarian states' are not new. Hitler also referred to the Bolsheviks when he wanted to open the road to conquests for himself."
Distracted by such attacks, shocked by the expense, the U.S. public might in the end withdraw its support. This was the greatest risk. If that happened, the Truman program might end in a fiasco, and Joe Kennedy's theory work out in reverse.
In Defense of Peace. For Old Soldier Marshall these must have been calculated risks. He could answer objections. U.N. was still too weak to act in such an emergency, and did not yet have the machinery to handle it. The Tsaldaris government in Greece was Western Democracy's only available instrument.
Was the program a kind of U.S. imperialism? Those Americans made uncomfortable by this word might have to find another word which did not distress them so much. For the U.S. was in a world divided between two great antagonists. Communist imperialism must be contained. U.S. influence must expand to contain it; otherwise the U.S. might be engulfed.