number 1 - Centre d'études et de recherches européennes Robert ...

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John Gillingham
tance is [actually] required." 30 Indeed no adequate rationale was ever forthcoming,
nor any real accountability ever requested.
The election of Eisenhower made a difference here. William Draper, the US
Special Representative in Europe under President Truman and as such the chief
dispenser of assistance, believed that "the [CSC's] taxing power, and the inherent
strength of the coal and steel industries should make it possible and desirable that
the necessary coal and steel financing can be arranged internally by particular companies,
as part of an overall High Authority investment program through private
and public sources or the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development
and that US aid should not be necessary." He added, slightly bemused, that "The
High Authority has not developed its survey of industries and their needs for investment
[and] has made no approaches to private or public sources or IBRD for financing
...". 31 His successors expressed few such reservations.
Preparations for the loan began in April 1953, when Columbia University
invited Monnet to receive an honorary doctorate at the June graduation ceremonies.
Taking advantage of the Frenchman's impending visit, Dulles arranged a series of
meetings with key Washington policy-makers, including the president, who after a
head-to-head discussion wrote Congress on 15 June to request loan authorization. 32
Eisenhower did not ask for a special appropriation, which would have figured in
the budget, but rather the opening of a 500 million dollar line of credit from the
Treasury Department that the CSC could draw upon as required. 33 Since no guidelines
were set for the use of this facility, Secretary of the Treasury Humphrey felt
obliged to warn Dulles that businessmen would object strenuously to "using our tax
money to finance additional steel competition from abroad." Humphrey added,
though without elaborating, that using the funds to rehabilitate the coal and iron
mines, as discussed by Monnet during his June visit, "would involve no such sums
as 400 million or 500 million dollars." 34
Monnet turned up at the December 1953 NATO meeting in Paris with a vigorous
defence of the loan request against both Treasury objections and in the face of
queries from Harold Stassen. Stassen directed the Foreign Operations Administration
and, in spite of the new title, succeeded Draper. The Frenchman put on an
outrageous performance, at once forceful, even arrogant, and completely disingenuous.
One marvels that it was even partly persuasive. After repeated prodding,
Monnet admitted that the CSC could possibly get by with as little as $400 million
but denied that the expenditure would in any way affect the competitive position of
the American steel industry on the grounds that the sums in question would be
channelled into modernizing mine operations. When reminded by Humphrey that
30. FRUS 1952-1954/VI "Memorandum by the Officer in Charge of Economic Organization Affairs
(Camp) to the Director of the Office of Western European Affairs (Byington)", 18 July 1952.
31. FRUS 19521954/VI "The United States Special Representative in Europe (Draper) to Undersecretary
of State (Bruce)", 3 November 1952.
32. FRUS 1952-1954/VI "Editorial Note", p. 311.
33. FRUS 1952-1954/VI "The Secretary of the Treasury (Humphrey) to the Secretary of State",
8 December 1953.
34. Ibid.