countries will become predominantly a matter of the extent to which it can influence national policy through the White House. This means that greatly increased importance must he attached to the means of liaison between the Department and the White House, and particularly to the National Security Council.
But we should not deceive ourselves into hoping that national policy conducted through channels as round about as this, and involving the use of a new and separate organization such as the ERP administration, can be as clear cut or as efficacious as that which could be conducted if policy-making functions continued to rest clearly with the regular agencies of government. No policy can become really effective unless it commands the understanding of those who carry it out. The understanding of governmental policies in the field of foreign affairs cannot be readily acquired by people who are new to that field, even when they are animated by the best will in the world. This is not a manner of briefing, or instructing, which could be done in a short time. It is a matter of educating and training, for which years are required.
Our experience with ad hoc wartime and post-hostilities agencies operating in the foreign field has demonstrated that not only are new agencies of little value in executing policies which go beyond the vision and the educational horizon of their own personnel, but that they actually develop a momentum of their own which, in the final analysis, tends to shape—rather than to serve—the national policy.
I do not think that the manner in which this aid program is to be undertaken is necessarily going to mean that its basic purpose will not be served. While we will hardly be able to use U.S. aid tactically, as a flexible political instrument, the funds and goods will nevertheless themselves constitute an important factor on the European scene. The mere availability of this amount of economic assistance will create, so to speak, a new topographic feature against which the peoples of Western Europe will be able to brace themselves in their own struggle to preserve political independence.
But we must recognize that, once the bill has been passed, the matter will be largely out of our hands. The operation of the ERP administration will make it difficult for this Department itself to conduct any incisive and vigorous policy with relation to Europe during the period in question. This does not relieve us, of course, of the duty of continuing to study carefully the development of the European scene and of contributing as best we can to the formulation of national policy relating to the European area. But it thrusts this Department back—with respect to one great area of the world's surface—into the position it occupied in many instances during the recent war:—the position of an advisory, rather than an executive, agency.
