"All I Have Worked For"

At his press conference, Harry Truman was obviously thinking of an apostleship-of-peace plank in the Democratic Party's 1952 platform. "We would probably go back to the dark ages if we have a third world war," he said in mortuary tones. The U.S. itself would become a battlefront, he warned. His remarks (which he allowed to be quoted directly) were the latest in a string of melancholy lectures to the U.S. public on the horrors of war.

He squared his shoulders, gestured with both hands out: "That is all I have worked for--for peace in the world--for six years. Nothing in my life amounts to anything but world peace."

Fears & Hopes. Radio's liberal Elmer Davis, never a warhawk, was among the newsmen who registered some surprise at the President's apocalyptic tone. He asked if the President wasn't being too pessimistic: "Haven't we got enough energy and intelligence in this country to keep from slipping back into the dark ages even if we would have to fight another war?"

"I hope that is true," said Harry Truman, "but you know what happens to governments and what happens to people, Elmer ... I am not willing to take a chance on it. That is the reason why I don't want a third world war."

New Noodle. In his effort to avoid World War III, the President added a new noodle to the federal alphabet soup: MSP. The letters stand for Mutual Security Program, which will combine in one three-letter bundle all U.S. foreign aid, including EGA, MDAP and Point Four.

Then the President asked Congress to give MSP $8 1/2 billion for fiscal 1952, about a billion dollars less than he had threatened to ask for in January. Even so, as much money would be spent on MSP as it took to run the entire U.S. Government in 1938. Under MSP, the President proposed to give away $6.25 billion worth of guns, tanks and planes, and another $2.25 billion for economic aid (compared with $5.3 billion military and $3 billion economic in fiscal 1951).

Europe would still get the most help, but this year, for the first time, the Middle East would get big grants. There, said the President, "lie half of the oil reserves of the world. No part of the world is more directly exposed to Soviet pressure."

Where the money would go:

AREA ECONOMIC MILITARY

Europe $1,650,000,000 $5,240,000,000

Asia 375,000,000 555,000,000

Middle East 125,000,000 415,000,000

Latin America 22,000,000 40,000,000

All this would be straight grants (plus another $78 millions for administrative expenses). In addition, the President asked Congress to increase by $1 billion (to $4.5 billion) the lending authority of the Export-Import Bank.

"It is not a program under which we will carry the rest of the free world on our backs," said the President. It would help "those who help themselves," and "build more strength in support of our security than we could build at home with the same expenditure."

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