E-Paper
HT This Day: December 20, 1947 -- Truman asks Congress to approve European aid programme
President Truman today asked Congress to approve a $17,000,000,000 4 1/4-year European recovery programme to avert the “shattering blow to peace and stability in the world” that would result from the world’s collapse into totalitarianism.
President Truman today asked Congress to approve a $17,000,000,000 4 1/4-year European recovery programme to avert the “shattering blow to peace and stability in the world” that would result from the world’s collapse into totalitarianism.
He requested a specific appropriation of $6,800,000,000 for the first 15 months of the programme, starting on April 1, 1948.
President Truman declared: “European recovery is essential to the maintenance of the civilizatio in which the American way of life is rooted.”
He warned: “We must not be blind to the fact that the Communists have announced their determined opposition to any effort to help get Europe back on its feet.
“There will unquestionably. be further incitements to strike- not for the purpose of redressing legitimate grievances of particular groups, but for the purpose of bringing chaos, in the hope that it will pave the way for totalitarian control.”
Mr Truman did not say how the funds would be distributed. It was understood that those figures will be disclosed when committee hearings open on the programme at the rea gular session of Congress in January.
The President said: “The plan’s total cost, though large, will be only about five per cent of our effort in the recent war. It will cost less than three per cent of our national income during the life of the programme.”
He did not ask for any funds for monetary stabilization, for which the Paris report requested 3,000,000,000 dollars.
