The Tab

After acting like a small boy afraid to go to the dentist, the Administration finally broke down under demands from Capitol Hill last week and put a first-year price tag on the arms to accompany the North Atlantic Treaty. It wasn't as bad as predicted, after all. For the coming fiscal year, Dean Acheson told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the U.S. planned to provide the treaty nations of Western Europe with $1.13 billion worth of military supplies (plus an additional $320 million primarily for Greece and Turkey). Perhaps half the equipment would come from U.S. war surplus arsenals, so the actual cash outlay would be much less.

In four hours behind closed doors in the committee's gloomy Capitol committee room, Secretary of State Dean Acheson and Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson answered some questions, left more unanswered. Western Europe would get no immediate boost in its military strength: the first year's supplies would simply reinforce established divisions, chiefly with light equipment. But what would the future cost be? Nobody knew. Which nations would get how much? That was up to the discretion of the President and not the countries involved. Significantly, it would be the Secretary of State and not the Secretary of Defense who would administer the law--a way of emphasizing that the arms program is primarily a diplomatic weapon in the cold war.

Senators had wanted to know the size of the bill before buying the Atlantic pact itself. Now that the tab was face up, Congress was more relieved than alarmed. Even Georgia's closefisted Democrat Walter F. George, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, seemed ready to go along.

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