Every Man for Himself

Many a Republican was growing restive over the implications of the Truman Doctrine--if only because it bore the name of the Democrat's 1948 presidential candidate. Last week the origin of the doctrine, the aid-to-Greece-and-Turkey bill, arrived on the floor of the House. The G.O.P. made it plain that every man would vote for himself. The result: four days of shrill and contentious debate which reminded observers of nothing so much as the lurid neutrality fight of 1939.

Party lines sagged and ancient political enemies got together. On the opposition side, New York's Leftist Vito Marcantonio was joined by far-right Republicans like Michigan's Clare Hoffman, Pennsylvania's Robert Rich; by isolationists like Wisconsin's Lawrence Smith.

Cried Colorado's Republican Congressman J. Edgar Chenoweth: "I should think that you who are trying to get us into World War III would have the decency to wait until we get back the bodies of the 300,000 boys killed in World War II." Boomed Democratic Minority Leader Sam Rayburn: "God help us, God help this world, if we do not accept our responsibility to help countries who do not want to be smothered by Communism."

Not Bipartisan. As the argument raged, delegations of U.S. Communists sat in the galleries, hissed speakers who advocated passage and thus annoyed many a wavering member into complete support of the bill. New Jersey's hulking Charles A. Eaton, aged chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, pulled out a telegram from United Nations Representative Warren R. Austin. Aid to Greece and Turkey, Austin wired, was justified, would strengthen the United Nations, should be approved.

The bill passed by a vote of 287 to 107. But the close Republican vote--127 to 93--made it plain that congressional support of every phase of the Administration's foreign policy was by no means on a bipartisan basis.

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