PUT YOURSELF IN MARSHALL'S PLACE

A catchy though pretentious title for a first rate study of Secretary Marshall's inheritance (an absence of policy, an unworkable bipartisanism, a muddied background of U.S.- U.S.S.R. relations) and his first year. The Truman doctrine had put the structure of peace into greatest jeopardy; Anglo-American relations were strained by the penny-wise-pound-foolish loan provisions, by the skyrocketing of uncontrolled prices here; the four powers were facing failure in Germany. With the Acheson address, ""The Requirements of Reconstruction"" -- followed by the Marshall Plan, a turning point was reached, though Mr. Molotov's walkout made it a plan for recovery of western Europe. Warburg discusses the basic difficulties in implementing the plan, in the deployment of the west; he presents, dispassionately, the Cominform- Russia's answer to the deployment of the east. He feels that the Marshall Plan came in time to halt the Communist advance in France, in Italy- but that it has strengthened the forces of reaction, an almost equal danger. But at least we are launched on a positive program of economic recovery, which will succeed to the degree with which our relations with the Soviet are improved. He analyzes Russia's side- her overwhelming fear of war, - military and economic, bolstered by successive steps we have taken. Insurance on one side is threat to the other- and this works both ways. We must think peace -- not war; avoid doctrinaire fanaticism; accept the importance of trade across the ""iron curtain""; relax the tensions. If this is done, even the Chinese and Korean and Japanese situations will ease... The appendix contains the documents of this period essential to understanding.