man and Bidault, between their policies, but it is too bad, it is a sad thing, to see a man who has done so much run into this problem.

Senator SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Secretary, does that push Mr. Monnet1 out, too? He was the brains behind Schuman.

Secretary ACHESON. No; he is the head of the high authority of the Schuman Plan. He is no longer in the French Government.

Senator SMITH of New Jersey. He is going to be right where he is; they are not going to move him around?

Secretary ACHESON. Yes. He is in this supranational authority. He is the chairman and head of the Schuman plan. He now lives in Luxembourg. He has his house there, and has his headquarters there. and is devoting himself to the very great work which that going concern is putting on in Europe.

THE SCHUMAN PLAN

The Schuman plan opens up the first of February, the great sixnation plan in coal and steel, and puts in effect in February the 1 percent tax which creates a revolving fund of $50 million a year for the increase in facilities in the coal and steel developments in Europe.

Monnet tells me that already the whole attitude of mind of the business and industrial world, as well as the labor world, in regard to coal and steel is utterly changed by this new fact.

People in the southern part of the French coal and iron industry are making contracts for the sale of their merchandise in Germany: Ruhr manufacturers are making contracts of sale in North Africa.

The Belgians, for the first time since the Industrial Revolution. have access to the ore reserves in France. They have dissolved the Comite des Forges, and the chairman of that has now come in to do the opposite of what he has spent his life doing, which has been restricting all of these things purely for French producers, and he has taken the lead in increasing the facilities for the production of French ore for the whole Benelux consumption. It is a great opening up and loosening up of economic endeavor which, I think, will give new life and vitality to that whole.

REACTION OF THE SOVIET GOVERNMENT

Senator GREEN. Have you any reliable information as to what the reaction of the Soviet Government is to all of this?

Secretary ACHESON. I think that you can see how strongly they are opposed to what is going on by the constant effort they have made to slow it up and confuse it and stop it. The whole correspondence between the Soviet Government and the three governments in regard to Germany, which began a year ago last November, November of 1951, had been for the purpose of confusing this thing, stopping it, and the activity which they have been carrying on in Eastern Germany, all of the missions which some of the east Germans undertook, to go to Bonn and mix everything up, has been for that purpose.

I think you can now see that they are getting quite alarmed about the possibility that there really may be this strong unified group, because there is uncertainty and bewilderment in East Germany.

1 Jean Monnet, President of the High Authority of the European Coal and Steel Community (Schuman Plan).

These purges take place when there is internal confusion and difficulty, and when they start arresting their own government people and confining them, and getting confessions, you know all is not well inside the satellite area.

I think they would do anything, Senator Green, to prevent the ratification of these treaties with Germany, and to prevent the development of a really closely knit and strong Western Europe.

Senator FERGUSON. You mean anything short of war?

Secretary ACHESON. Oh, yes. I do not believe that they are going to provoke an attack for that purpose.

Well, I think-George Perkins, have I left out anything in the meeting that you think I ought to cover?

Mr. PERKINS. No, I think that covers it.

Secretary ACHESON. I am looking at these notes.

I think that gives you a pretty full report. The last thing I should say over again, and I think I mentioned it, is that we agreed that there would be a necessity for a meeting early in 1953. They were not able to agree upon any date, but that that would have to be done by our successors. We thought, in general, it should be in April. Lord Ismay, the Secretary General, is authorized to take this up with the new administration here, and with other people, and to see when it would be convenient for them to have a second meeting necessary to close up the plans for 1953.

The CHAIRMAN. Any questions, Senator Smith?

GRAVELY OPTIMISTIC

Senator SMITH of New Jersey. I gather from your statement, Mr. Secretary, that you are optimistic about the whole thing rather than pessimistic? The newspapers were pretty pessimistic when we heard about the disintegration and chaos and that the whole NATO thing is endangered. I rather get the impression that it was not correctly reported through the press.

Secretary ACHESON. I think that is right, Senator Smith. I would not want you to have the impression that I do not see grave problems ahead

Senator SMITH of New Jersey. I think we all realize that.

Secretary ACHESON [continuing]. But I do see grave problems. I must say, however, when I went to Europe on the 12th of December I was very deeply depressed about the whole thing. But after talking with the men who are carrying forward, it seemed to me that they understood fully the nature of the problems that faced them, the necessity of solving those problems, and had a great determination to do it, and I became convinced that they would do it.

Now, there are problems, not only the ones we are talking about, but one grave problem being time.

You are going to have in May of 1953 elections in Germany and in Italy. If these matters can be worked out, if we can get a ratification of these plans sufficiently before the election so that you will have returned to power in Germany and Italy the middle-of-the-road strong groups that we now have, then I think the future is fine.

If, however, these treaties and others run into snags, and it causes confusion, and you should have different results, so that you had in

Italy and Germany a reemergence of totalitarian groups and some increase of strength on the Communist side, I should think we are in very grave trouble, and that is why there is a serious problem.

If these elections came in the fall instead of in the spring, I would think that we would stand a very high chance of making this thing successful.

You have to say it requires energy and courage and some element of good luck to get through it, but I think you are right in saying that as between being optimistic and pessimistic, I am optimistic; I am gravely optimistic, not gaily optimistic.

Senator SMITH of New Jersey. Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Green, do you have any questions?
Senator GREEN. I have no questions.

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Taft?

Senator TAFT. No, I have no questions.

Is the Secretary going on to any other fields?

Secretary ACHESON. No, I was asked to come up here

Senator TAFT. On just this one matter?

Secretary ACHESON. I was asked to come up and report here.

THE IRANIAN SITUATION

Senator TAFT. I was interested in the Iran situation, and the recent developments, but I do not want to force that unless you want to talk about it.

Secretary ACHESON. Well, it is pretty hard to talk about at this moment because it is quite confused.

Senator TAFT. That is why I asked the question; I was confused. Secretary ACHESON. I do not know what the situation is. I think in the days immediately ahead, it will clarify quite quickly.

Senator KNOWLAND. For better or for worse?

Secretary ACHESON. It is right now on the lap of the Gods, and I could not say. I have some hope that it will clarify in favor of a solution, but there are so many things in which you cannot get any accurate reports on.

For instance, this row which developed on Sunday in the Majlis between [Ayatollah Sayed Abolghassem] Kashani and [Mohammed] Mossadegh, some radio report, something in the paper, would lead you to believe this morning that Kashani has backed down. Maybe he has, but our cables do not show that is the case, and if right in the|| middle of attempting to work out this whole thing, we are going to have a blow-up with the Moslem Brotherhood, on the one side, and Mossadegh and his National Front on the other, so that you get strong passions, religious on one side and nationalist on the other, and some cross-current of those two going at once, people get a shock in rioting around, and you cannot say what the outcome is going to be. It will change every rational factor into an irrational factor.

1 On January 18, at a critical moment in negotiations to resolve the Anglo-Iranian oil dispute, Kashani. Speaker of the Majlis or lower house of the Iranian parliament and political ally of Premier Mossadegh, announced his break with the Premier over the latter's request for an extension of his emergency powers, thus threatening the fall of Mossadegh's government and adding a new element of uncertainty to an already uncertain and inflamed situation.

On the merits of the matter, it seems that the parties have been getting the British and the Iranians closer together, closer and closer together, and I should hope if reason prevails here, they are close enough so that it can be done. But

The CHAIRMAN. That is a big "if."

Secretary ACHESON. It is really like negotiating on a powder keg, with somebody throwing matches into it. Any one of them is likely to blow the whole thing up.

Senator TAFT. Are the Moslems more Communist or less Communist and sympathetic than Mossadegh?

Secretary ACHESON. NO.

Senator TAFT. More anti-British, perhaps?

Secretary ACHESON. Yes.

Well, they are all about as anti-British as they could be. Kashani's group are religious fanatics. They are the extreme, the old fighting Moslem idea. They are negotiating with and playing with the Tudeh Party, the Communist Party.

They are under the illusion that they can use the Communists and then chew them up and get rid of them when they want to. That has never happened very well, and I do not think it will work with them.

The Communists, of course, think they can work with them, so there is very great opposition between the two groups, neither one of which trusts the other, and playing together, and both of them hoping to beat the fellow to the draw at a critical moment.

Mossadegh, I think, has a more solid popular support, but this support is pretty wild, too, and sometimes you are not clear who is supporting whom. When these mobs begin rioting, they start out to support one side, and end up by supporting the other. It is a pretty disorderly situation. So all I can say is that there is a hope that this thing can be done, but that things can be blown wide open any hour of the day without any notice in advance.

The CHAIRMAN. Any further questions, Senator Taft?
Senator TAFT. No.

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Gillette?

THE MILITARY BALANCE IN EUROPE

Senator GILLETT. Mr. Secretary, I wish you would amplify in your comment the statements that you made earlier in your presentation referring to the distinct gains that have been made. You referred to the fact that there was a time when there was nothing whatever that we could interpose in the way of an attack or turning maneuvers by the Soviet Government, and that you thought we had reached a point where it would, at least, be a very difficult matter for them to undertake.

Then, later in referring to the statement that General Ridgway made, you said that Ridgway very frankly stated that he did not have enough force to carry out his mission. Will you comment on those two statements, particularly what his mission is, and if he doesn't have the force to accomplish his mission, what reason for optimism was there, that we had sufficient force to make it a very hazardous effort for the Soviets to launch such an attack?

Secretary ACHESON. I do not remember exactly the words which I used to describe General Ridgway's mission, but roughly, and subject to getting the thing straight from the paper itself, it is about what we have always said is what we wished to attain, that is, to have a force in being or soon to be in being, which would accomplish two purposes: One would be to prevent war, to deter war, to prevent any attack, and the other would be if the worst happened, if we were attacked, to conduct this successful offense and ultimately to win the war.

Now, he cannot accomplish the mission stated that way now be cause he has not got sufficient force.

Senator FERGUSON. That is, either one of those missions?
Secretary ACHESON. Well, either one of those missions completely.

SOVIETS COULD NOT OVERRUN EUROPE WITHOUT MOBILIZATION

But what I was saying earlier, Senator, before you came in I think, is that what we have now got is a force which is sufficient to make it impossible for the existing Communist forces in Europe to take off and overrun Europe.

Senator FERGUSON. Do I understand that Communist forces in Europe means in Poland, in East Germany?

Secretary ACHESON. What it really means is in East Germany.
Senator FERGUSON. East Germany?

Secretary ACHESON. Yes; and it means that for the reason that I will go on to state

Senator FERGUSON. Not in Austria?

Secretary ACHESON. Well, I had not thought about Austria. I do not know the military answer to that, but not very strong forces in Austria exist on either side.

What I went on to say is that the reason that that achievement is an important achievement is that it would require some considerable degree of mobilization to augment the forces in East Germany to make it a successful attack, and that is something which is observable, and something of which we will have cognizance.

Senator GILLETTE. That is my question.

Secretary ACHESON. That is why we are happy that we have been able to do that much, and as we can do more, everybody ought to be happier still.

Senator GILLETTE. That is all that I wanted to ask him, Mr. Chair

man.

Senator SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Chairman, I regret that I have to go to a meeting of my New Jersey people. I want to thank the Secretary for coming this morning and for his statement here, and to express again my appreciation of the many meetings we have had together, and our personal relationship, and I hope that will always obtain.

Secretary ACHESON. Thank you; it is very gracious of you.
The CHAIRMAN. Senator Sparkman?

Senator SPARKMAN. No questions.

Senator FERGUSON. I have two questions.

The CHAIRMAN. I beg your pardon, Senator.