Fixing the Blame

In six closely typed, brusquely written pages, the U.S. Government last week nailed down the responsibility for Hungary's desperate economic condition. In a note which Ambassador Walter Bedell Smith delivered to the Kremlin. Washington put the blame squarely on Soviet occupation measures. Items:

Reparations are absorbing between 80 and 90% of current coal, iron and machinery output. "Hungarian heavy industry is producing practically nothing for domestic requirements."

The Russians have removed $124,000,000 worth of factory equipment, about a third as much as was destroyed during five years of war.

The Red Army, whose 600,000 Hungarian-based troops live off the land, requisitioned 4,000,000 tons of wheat, rye, barley, corn and oats during 1945. In a typical prewar year when crops were much more bountiful than now, Hungary's farms produced only 7,189,000 tons of these grains.

Gold & Yalta. The Soviet Government, in its own analysis of the Hungarian crisis, had charged that the U.S. was keeping in its German and Austrian zones $3 billion of property which the Nazis had taken from Hungary. Said the U.S. note: "The [Soviet estimate] is grossly exaggerated. The most important single item of Hungarian property in the American zones appears to be ... gold . . . which amounts to approximately $32,000,000." This gold is now on its way back to Budapest.

But the U.S. was interested in more than fixing responsibility. Washington, un willing to gamble on Soviet assistance to Budapest's anti-Communist Government, proposed an inter-Allied commission to plan and carry out economic reconstruction. Such coordinated assistance for needy nations had been planned by the Big Three at Yalta. The Russians, who were always quick to cry "Yalta" when it suited their own ends, now had the embarrassing choice of repudiating their favorite inter national agreement or welcoming Allied incursion into their private booty preserve.

No one seriously expected Moscow to give the matter enough thought to be embarrassed.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.