European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - June 06, 1977, Darmstadt, Hesse Page 12 the stars and stripes monday june 6, 1977 we caj4t possibly produce Cleamer autos except of course when somebody makes us James Reston anniversary passes almost without notice Europe pays More attention to the past than America so it remembered the 30th anniversary of the european recovery or Marshall plan but not much. A few old timers and Young scholars celebrated the plan called by Churchill the most generous act of. Any country in the history of nation but even Europe seems to have forgotten the history and objectives of that extraordinary event. Time is a great leveler said lord Franks who As British ambassador in Washington at the time played a critical role in the new world s Rescue of the old. When we look Back Over 30 years to the Marshall plan a full generation of human life it seems naturally to take its place inthe history of the Western world since the second world War and we can usually fail to grasp its exceptional Quality and signify was a modest British understate ment for even the words and names of that event Are misleading. It was not really a Marshall general Marshall announced it at Harvard 30 years ago but it was conceived much earlier by Dean ache son Averill Harriman George Kennan will Dayton and Many others in washing important it was not conceived merely As a plan to recover or re store the old National states and allies of Western Europe but to Reform them into some kind of new political Union that in partnership with the United states could find common ways to defend a freehand common civilization. Washington even thought in those Days of Eastern Europe As being part of that Western civilization George f. Will Segal going for left Over dollars Erich Segal s love Story sold More than 400,000 copies in hardback nine million paperbacks became a movie handmade almost All the Money in the world. Segal s sequal. Oliver s Story is making the rest. And such is my Devotion gentle Reader that i have read it for you. Low Story was the Story of Olive Barrett in scion of a new England for tune and Jenny Camilleri. Daughter of a Providence. R.i., Baker she called Phil. Twas an upward mobility melodrama. Oliver was your typical Wasp in the grip of the Iron Law of inherited guilt Furi Ous at Oliver Barrett i ii and Iii for the Way textile Mills they acquired the Patri Mony off which he was living at Harvard. Jenny was your typical ethnic Bright but unpretentious wary witty soulful Epi married privately with the collaboration of a unitarian chaplain in a Cere Mony expressing the unitarian Tenent that there is at most one god. Off they went to live happily in proud love Story was published in 1970, year of Kent state and Cambodia when undergraduates just knew that the world was a conspiracy against the happiness of youth. So Jenny died Oliver s Story begins two years after Jenny s death. Oliver now a lawyer is Inlove again this time with Harlem and the first the melancholy widower while jogging meets a liberated depart ment store heiress. He goes to a psychologist to get in touch with his feelings she goes to Cleveland to take care of business they go to bed. And it seems As if they will jog together along the Cool sequestered Vale of there is a dead mayfly at the Bottom of the Beer Mug of Oliver s life. This is the mid seventies and people with tender con sciences Are afraid that Western civilization is a disgrace to Western civilization an offence against the third world. That is what Oliver discovers when he and his lad visit Hong Kong to gaze upon sunsets and her shirt factory. Oliver discovers that the Orient in t abit like Boston that his lady employs Chil Dren and does not air condition her factory. She comes on like Nixon everybody does the Scales fall from Oliver s Blue eyes he sees that his lady is a smudge on the social fabric and decides that he does not want to meet her again in this world or the next. The Pace of action reaches a Crescen do when Oliver returns to Boston and to the discovery that his father is not an old piece of fudge after All. Dad it seems is not just an investment banker and not a grinder of the faces of the proletariat. He is a Friend of the work ing stiff. A Union Leader tells Oliver that when other Mill owners ran like rats Handset up plants Down dad Sank three million Bucks to save our jobs in Massachusetts. Of course the pressure s really on him now says the Union Man. Why asks Oliver. The Union Man looks at Oliver and Speaks two syllables Hong yeah says Oliver that s wicked rather than rending his garments an scattering ashes on his head As penance for being a cad to dad to these Many years Oliver does the next Best thing. He joins dad s investment banking firm and vows to devote the full Force of his powerful intellect to the task of making american Industry nourish in the face of wicked Competition from the yellow peril of cheap Unai conditioned Oriental labor. What is the moral of Oliver s Story a recipe for successful publishing mused d. W. Brogan. The historian years ago. The three certainly successful themes so i have been told Are the civil War doctors and dogs. So the Ideal bestseller would be i was Lincoln s vet " today Segal understands an Ideal Best seller is a custard of comforting senti ments. Love Story a four Hankie boo which could Jerk tears from a linebacker was the delicious distraction of soap opera in a time of Public turmoil. Oliver s Story has a soothing message for love Story readers undergraduates no longer Don t feel bad it is Okay it is even progressive to be an investment banker. E a Mington Post murderer s Row Chi to Mac represent thaw at try 4utnors and re m no w4r and offered to include the states of Region in its Bounty. I a. All this sounds Remote and even vaguely a romantic today until you look at the a Vav Val and muddle of nationalism in Europe and elsewhere in the world. The european states have recovered but not reformed All that much. They have made some Prog Ress but they have regained their Inda Pendency and Don t quite know what to do ,/.,., with it in an increasingly mixed up and dependent world. It is interesting to recall one Issue that -. Troubled the founders of the Marshall plan and unification of Europe As a condition of massive Aid or revive it first and Hope for political Reform later. William Mcchesney Martin former f chairman of the Federal Reserve Board argued for political Reform first claiming. That if the european states were restore before they committed themselves. To Reform and some kind of political Unity they would never Reform. In an analogy for which the europeans never quite forgave him he said it was the old problem of handling a drunk. If you restored him before he reformed himself he would Goback to his old habits. Martin s View was rejected but the . Objective of european Unity As the purpose of the Marshall plan is Clear from the record. Lord Franks recalled the facts in his lessons of the Marshall plan experience Here in Paris recently.,"the critical element in my View he. Said was an idea the idea of Unity in Europe in Western Europe once easter Europe had withdrawn. It was alive in american thinking. It was in the mind of George Kennan As he drafted the report of the policy planning staff fur general mar shall the insistence on a joint program initiated by lord Franks also recalled that the idea of european Unity was alive in the report of the committee of european economic cooperation offer of Aid. The report state that the controlling principle of the com Mittee s work has been the inter Epen Dence of the National economies of the countries concerned and if these countries Are to proceed quickly along the Road to re covery they must proceed together it is Clear that the dreams of 30 Yean ago have not been realized that the plan worked so Well and restored so much of the old that Europe rejected the dream an America Lias now almost forgotten to. Yet despite French insistence on National Independence and British tardiness in joining the Community there is still much Worth celebrating after 30 years for the idea of practical cooperation among the nations remains and the link Between Europe and North America has not been broken. In general this principle of cooperation seems to be accepted in this part of the world particularly the american Security and economic Side of the bargain but the notion of european Unity the original american objective of the Marshall plan while not wholly lost seems to recede fro the european mind. Even Jean Monnet a Nobel peace prize candidate if there Ever was one and the last of the optimistic architects of euro Pean Unity watches with regret Ini a Iff the stubborn Power of nationalism and to refusal to recognize the imperative de mands of an increasingly new cooperative world order. Even so the Marshall plan waa a Ste Worth celebrating and the Odd thing la that the political leaders of Europe so preoccupied by the anxieties and complexities of National politics and economics paid so Little attention to the anniversary. Id new Tomt
