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E. H. van der Beugel Oral History Interview, June 17, 1970

Oral History Interview with
E. H. van der Beugel

Director, Bureau for the Marshall Plan, Foreign Affairs Office, the Netherlands, 1947-52

The Hague, Netherlands
June 17, 1970
by Theodore A. Wilson, University of Kansas

See also: E. H. van der Beugel Oral History, by Philip C. Brooks of the Harry S. Truman Library.

[Notices and Restrictions | Interview Transcript | List of Subjects Discussed]

 


Notice
This is a transcript of a tape-recorded interview conducted for the Harry S. Truman Library. A draft of this transcript was edited by the interviewee but only minor emendations were made; therefore, the reader should remember that this is essentially a transcript of the spoken, rather than the written word.

Numbers appearing in square brackets (ex. [45]) within the transcript indicate the pagination in the original, hardcopy version of the oral history interview.

RESTRICTIONS
This oral history transcript may be read, quoted from, cited, and reproduced for purposes of research. It may not be published in full except by permission of the Harry S. Truman Library.

Opened May, 1997
Harry S. Truman Library
Independence, Missouri

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Oral History Interview with
E. H. van der Beugel

The Hague, Netherlands
June 17, 1970
by Theodore A. Wilson, University of Kansas

[1]

VAN DER BEUGEL: The organization in Europe was very good at the beginning of the Marshall plan, in its creation of separate agencies. But later the old agencies began to demand more responsibility and this caused difficulties. Yes, that certainly is true, and that's very natural, of course--this creation of ECA [Economic Cooperation Administration]. It was so revolutionary and so new, that when the first very adventurous, and new and constructive years passed, the old bureaucracy stepped in. There was, of course, a very important other element, and that was at the level--of course there were many exceptions--but the level of the first harvest of ECA

[2]

people was much higher than what came afterwards.

We have been very lucky in Holland to have Clarence Hunter, for example. Well, we started with Alan Valentine who was absolutely tops; then came Clarence Hunter, who was absolutely tops. And he stayed for the full four years, but that was an exception. The President of the university, of course, gave Valentine time to do it for a year, and then he went back to his university. All the brokers in New York and all the lawyers from Philadelphia would do it for one or two years, and then they went back to their old jobs. Then the old bureaucrats moved in.

WILSON: But you were struck by the quality of these amateurs?

VAN DER BEUGEL: The quality was absolutely exceptional. There is no precedent in history for that kind of role, all over the place.

WILSON: Would you say they were remarkably open-minded?

VAN DER BEUGEL: Oh, yes, remarkably open-minded, remarkably motivated, and remarkably devoted. Well, it was great fun for them too.

[3]

WILSON: Yes. How about the problems that would arise because of these very attributes of working in harness? Was it the sort of problem wherein a man coming from a brokerage firm, or coming from a university, and then having to follow or establish certain rules . . .

VAN DER BEUGEL: Yes, but their advantage was that the whole administration was brand new. They practically made their own rules, and I suppose that they had some very great administrative and bureaucratic difficulties--reporting, and that kind of thing. But as far as I can judge, it worked remarkably well. One of the nicest things about the Marshall plan is this group which moved in within three months, all over the place.

WILSON: What about the Dutch side? You set up a comparable agency to handle this.

VAN DER BEUGEL: We set it up as a separate agency, and it was very young, too. Old [H. M.] Hirschfeld was in charge. He was the "grand man" of the Dutch bureaucracy, and I was his deputy. But I was very young at that time, and I hired forty brand new young people, which was unprecedented also in the Dutch administration.

[4]

WILSON: From . . .

VAN DER BEUGEL: Universities. I started out with thirty people, or forty people, under thirty years of age.

WILSON: What happened to this group subsequently? Did they go back to academic life?

VAN DER BEUGEL: No; it varied. Some stayed in the foreign office; others went to private business. They dispersed. Quite a few stayed in foreign service.

WILSON: And reintegrated with . . .

VAN DER BEUGEL: With the rest of the bureaucracy.

WILSON: Might you say that the experience of working with the special Marshall plan agency helped or hindered their careers when they . . .

VAN DER BEUGEL: Oh, it helped. Yes. We were not popular, because we were rather tough towards the bureaucracy. But we had to run it. We had the money. And we used that position.

WILSON: This is a subjective question, but several persons

[5]

with whom I've talked have suggested that the experience encouraged the growth of internationalism, an internationalist attitude. This is certainly borne out by your statements.

VAN DER BEUGEL: There's no question about that, and certainly from what happened in Paris. I mean, after all these years--it was practically 25 years ago--I still have a very close friendship with many of my first colleagues from 1947 in Paris. Eric Roll, [Robert] Marjolin and Jean Snoy--we see each other all the time.

WILSON: I shall see all three of those.

VAN DER BEUGEL: Eric is one of my partners in Walberg; Jean Snoy, I see many times. Marjolin, I see all the time. The moment people see that you went through these first years together, there is something very special, very special.

Now what was the relation between the Embassy, OSR [Office of the Special Representative in Europe], and ECA? The relation between OSR and ECA is a little difficult for me to judge. It depended a little bit

[6]

on the persons, on the relations you had. Well, the bilateral thing was primarily done, in the countries, between the ECA mission and the government. The division of aid: there you got a line=up between the country mission, the government, against OECD [Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development] and OSR, from time to time. I mean, the man here pleaded the Dutch cause in Washington and at OSR. The relation between the Embassy and ECA: Intrinsically, it was a terribly difficult position. After all, there was this American ambassador sitting here with a man in another house, and he could give away five hundred million dollars. It was not very easy, because that was the central problem.

WILSON: Well, it had arisen very early in American relations with Great Britain, with the lend-lease.

VAN DER BEUGEL: Yes, with the lend-lease. And here, for instance, there was the whole Indonesian question, and the ECA. It was that kind of incident in which the State Department wanted to block our ECA funds in order to put pressure on the Indonesian thing, and the ECA raised hell. But essentially it was very much a matter of

[7]

personal relations between the ECA chief and the ambassador. We have had experience here that was very good, and we have had experience where it was very bad.

WILSON: Was there criticism on the part of the Embassy that the ECA people did not pay attention to political realities?

VAN DER BEUGEL: No. That was the rationalization, but the fact was, of course, that the ECA people came into every department. They knew everybody. Every minister fell from his chair, when the ECA chief wanted to see him. When the Ambassador wanted to see him, he looked in his book, and said, "Well, I have no time this week." That was the relation.

WILSON: Fair enough; that's very helpful. That's particularly the Dutch case, and also obviously the case in Paris, with [Ambassador Jefferson] Caffery.

VAN DER BEUGEL: Yes.

WILSON: In your view, was there perhaps another rationalization in attitude that the State Department had the professionals, and the ECA people were temporary, and

[8]

that really State should be deferred to?

VAN DER BEUGEL: I don't know. I'm not terribly impressed by the professional side of any ministry of foreign affairs, with a few exceptions. I would never go for this easy step. American interests are by nature better represented by the established State Department bureaucracy than they are by a rather adventurous setup. I recognize the dangers of the adventurous setup. I would be very reluctant to pleas the case against nonprofessional ambassadors. You have had a few unbelievable fools as career diplomats, and you have had superb people in both categories.

WILSON: Just a matter of accident?

VAN DER BEUGEL: Yes.

But on this whole thesis of how can a man who has never been in diplomacy, such as Lew Douglas, Jack [John J.] McCloy, and [James B.] Conant, to mention a few, they belong to the very best ambassadors we have ever had.

WILSON: That's certainly true.

[9]

VAN DER BEUGEL: Let's not be obsessed by [Walter H.] Annenberg in London. Now it's very bad. The whole crop is weak, with a few exceptions. But it has nothing to do with
being professional or non-professional.

WILSON: What about the lower levels? Did some of the people in the Embassy at the lower levels recognize the facts of life?

VAN DER BEUGEL: Oh, yes; there was no warfare. I mean, there was very good cooperation, too. We have had periods here, for instance, where the relations between the two were superb.

WILSON: But, of course, as you point out in your book, there was almost no possibility at the beginning that the ECA could have been under State Department control. It was not considered.

VAN DER BEUGEL: No.

WILSON: In Congress, or really in the executive. And that's some kind of comment, I think.

VAN DER BEUGEL: Neither, with a few exceptions, could it be

[10]

different in the European countries. You had to make a new setup, whether you did it in Treasury or in the Foreign Office. You had to have a unit which handled it. It couldn't have been handled by the old bureaucracy.

WILSON: What kind of problems did this division of responsibilities cause for you?

VAN DER BEUGEL: Well, constitutionally it created a remarkable situation. For the first time in Dutch history we had an office which was responsible to the whole Cabinet. We were not under the responsibility of one minister. We were not under the responsibility of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, nor of any other. We were responsible to the Cabinet. That meant, of course, a very weakened ministerial responsibility and a very great shift of power to the bureaucracy. We enjoyed that, not for the power, but for the flexibility. It was as simple as that. The problems were theirs. Well, we had lots of problems, but we had no problems in the execution of our functions, because we were sitting on the money.

WILSON: And then in your relations with, first, the ECA, then State, the Treasury, and the Export-Import Bank--

[11]

there's this multiplicity of responsibility in the United States for aid programs. What problems did this . . .

VAN DER BEUGEL: It became more complicated when military aid came in, and that kind of thing, but essentially ECA was our opposite number.

WILSON: It seems, from the work that we've done, that the Department of the Treasury of the United States was much more conscious, perhaps, even than State in protecting its own prerogatives.

VAN DER BEUGEL: Oh, yes, Treasury and the whole European Payments Union thing. The Commerce Department, from time to time, was not too happy about the whole thing, because Commerce and Treasury thought very much in global terms. They still lived in the world of GATT, United Nations, Monetary Fund, and so forth and so on. After all, OEEC was a breach, a regional breach, of the rules.

WILSON: That's a good statement of the question.

VAN DER BEUGEL: And that created certain tensions, but without any effect. I mean, there was a political approach, a program, for making Europe stand on its own

[12]

feet, plus, trying to bring the European countries together, even if that would mean the breach of the global rules, or eventually discrimination against the dollar. Always, until far into the sixties, that has always prevailed. There have been attempts, of course, but, in general, completely unsuccessful.

WILSON: Yes. Perhaps you should go down the list.

VAN DER BEUGEL: "Why, in your view, was not ECA set up to take over defense support activities?"

The concept was not clear anymore. You can't handle defense things without the Pentagon. And it was just an illusion. It was too technical. There was still something left of another great assistance group, with its own hierarchy. After all these were generals and admirals, and they had a special position, but they wouldn't dream of doing something against a man in the Pentagon to whom they knew they would be responsible. They had much more of the function of the military attaché as the absolute independence of the first ECA people. They could say, any moment of the day, "go to hell." Well, then they went back to the "Banker's Trust" and to the university.

[13]

WILSON: So this merry kind of adventurism came up against . .

VAN DER BEUGEL: Apart from the fact that the military atmosphere is less adventurous than these other people.

WILSON: The next question, obviously, is: was there understanding of your needs, of your problems?

VAN DER BEUGEL: Oh, yes. Very much. so. Very much. It was much more technical, but it worked quite well. It was much less spectacular; it was a different field.

WILSON: Yes, different purposes.

VAN DER BEUGEL: Different purposes.

"Might you elaborate upon your first Paris meetings and your trip to the United States in October '47, and the activities of European delegation to Washington?" Well, I think there I have said everything I could say, in the book, especially on this trip to Washington.

WILSON: I was thinking of any personal sidelights that you might recall that would be illuminating, that you decided to cut out of the book for space, or for whatever reason.

[14]

VAN DERBEUGEL: No, I think I said practically everything.

"Might you elaborate on the fight between the Dutch and the French on the question of how to treat Germany within the frame of the Marshall plan?"

Well, I think I wrote about it. It was essentially an economic phenomenon. I mean, we needed this hinterland. The French traditionally, did, too, but of course, after everything that happened; they were very much afraid of steep or rapid development of economic strength in Germany.

The French essentially wanted an approach to Germany wherein the primacy was on security and on reparations, while we, not because we were more intelligent or more generous, not at all, but because of what our interests were, said, "Well, you can't reconstruct Europe and reconstruct the Dutch economy without a minimum of economic health in Europe." That was the basic issue.

WILSON: The larger question from this is the role of Germany in American policy. There has been some suggestion, and some indication in the records which we've been looking into, that the efforts of the American military authorities, OMGUS and General [Lucius]

[15]

Clay, done in concert with the British, to get Germany off of the backs of the American taxpayer, led to keeping this desire in front of the administration, and that may have been one of the important causes of the Marshall plan. That is, "Germany before Europe." Solve the problems of Europe to solve the problems of Germany.

VAN DER BEUGEL: Without any doubt. Fully. That has always been the Dulles, the John Foster Dulles thesis, always. And the two men before him, because he was an adviser. When you read what he said, you begin to accept that point, "No security in Europe without Germany; no security with nationalistic Germany; therefore, the solution is to rebuild Germany in a European framework." That's the basic thesis of American foreign policy, and one of the strong motivations of the Marshall plan.

WILSON: One of them, but . . .

VAN DER BEUGEL: One of them. Oh, yes, one of the four or five.

WILSON: Yes.

You're suggesting that most of the Europeans recognize this as a principal purpose of American policy.

[16]

VAN DER BEUGEL: Yes.

WILSON: What then was your view of the economic policies taken by the American occupation forces? Such as the reliance upon the Joint Export-Import agency?

VAN DER BEUGEL: There were in those first years, great frictions, yes. It's a different thing to say that this country should be rebuilt, and then to see the Americans follow an economic policy which we felt was undue privilege for the Germans. But that was very temporary. It was a question of one or two years.

WILSON: What about the . . .

VAN DER BEUGEL: The Bizonal?

WILSON: Yes. There has been the suggestion that the Joint Export-Import agency's emphasis, or insistence, on bilateral negotiations, on bilateral arrangements, and basically barter arrangements, for the German zones, was a very shortsighted view in the sense of reintegrating Germany into a revived, recovered Europe.

VAN DER BEUGEL: Yes.

[17]

WILSON: You would go along with that?

VAN DER BEUGEL: Yes. There were certainly great tensions between the Americans in Germany and the Americans in Paris, in OSR. We had this famous row about the division of aid, whereat a certain moment the Americans were going to veto the division of aid. There was pressure to veto it, because Clay and his people thought that the German part was too small. So they threatened a veto. I think I've written about it in my book.

WILSON: Yes. I'm not entirely clear about the role of Harriman in this. You have written about it in the book. Anything that you might add about the office of the ECA representative in Paris?

VAN DER BEUGEL: I thought that Harriman had to put up a certain facade, not to break the American front, but that internally he fought it like hell. He could not have done otherwise, because he insisted on the success of that very difficult division of aid exercise. He said, "You've been having a hell of an exercise." Then he came back, saying, "I can't accept it because Clay wants more for the Germans."

[18]

WILSON: How long-lived was the bitterness or the ironies that came from this situation?

VAN DER BEUGEL: I don't know; a couple of months, not any longer.

WILSON: On the thrust of the United States for the division of aid, some of my British interviewees have suggested that the decision to put the responsibility onto this new organization was a mistake. You refute that in the book, but I wonder if you might go over that ground again?

VAN DER BEUGEL: I don't think it was a mistake. It would have been a mistake if it would not have been successful. There's nothing which succeeds like success, and nothing which fails like failure. It just did the trick. If it would not have been a success, it could have ruined OEEC, so if the British say the risk the Americans took was a very great risk, I agree. But essentially I think it was a courageous . . .

WILSON: That's how I should have phrased the question, I think.

[19]

VAN DER BEUGEL: The risk was enormous. Enormous.

WILSON: In retrospect, in the work that we've done, we probably haven't appreciated the enormity of the risk.

VAN DER BEUGEL: Oh, entirely; there were ten moments when collapse was practically possible. If the Americans would not have said the failure of this exercise will jeopardize the whole Marshall plan, then it would have collapsed twelve times, not once.

WILSON: They were using the argument, I assume, of the congressional insistence upon it. You, in Europe, were made quite conscious of the positions in Congress.

VAN DER BEUGEL: Yes.

WILSON: You had to become, as your book demonstrates, experts on the American system.

VAN DER BEUGEL: Yes, experts.

WILSON: With all of its difficulties. That's very interesting. We want to try to emphasize that aspect.

VAN DER BEUGEL: Yes. Have you read the book which we published

[20]

when the Marshall plan was finished, a government book, Road to Recovery?

WILSON: No; I know of it, but I have not read it.

VAN DER BEUGEL: You should read it. It's really excellent.

WILSON: Yes, I shall.

VAN DER BEUGEL: This is the only publication. There is only one. We decided to print that book. I have it here in the Dutch; it's called Road To Recovery. It's essential for you if you want to have a picture of the whole project.

WILSON: Yes.

VAN DER BEUGEL: The Road to Recovery is certainly mentioned in my book.

WILSON: Oh, yes, it certainly is. I have it in my notes.

What was the physical situation at the time of the Paris meetings? Did the various delegations come in and find hotel rooms wherever they could?

VAN DER BEUGEL: Oh, a mess. A terrible mess. The '47 conference was held in unbelievable heat in the "Petit

[21]

Palais." And everybody had to find his own way in the building. It was a terrible mess. But we came out of the occupation so we were quite prepared. We had to do quite a lot of work under all kinds of very funny situations.

As a personal recollection, there is something that might amuse you. We had to send these thousands of questionnaires, in '47, to our government. Everybody was here filling in questionnaires, even if they were not absolutely sure what they filled in. The only way you could write this book was on the basis of questionnaires. This was a difficult, if not impossible, exercise for well-organized countries. But now, you must imagine Greece and Turkey. One evening, very late, we had dinner with a very nice Greek colleague. He lived in the Ritz in Paris. We came into his room, and in his sitting room you could not see any furniture anymore because there were thousands of questionnaires lying around. And we said, "Why, you should have sent these questionnaires four weeks ago to Athens. You will never make it this way."

[22]

He said, "Do you really think that anybody in Athens will ?"

WILSON: That's marvelous.

Well, as you've pointed out, there was wide-spread knowledge that this was going on.

VAN DER BEUGEL: Of course, yes. Of course, the Americans knew this very well. Then we had Iceland. I must mention the funniest moment I ever had in an international conference. There was an Icelandic minister sitting in this '47 conference, but nobody cared. He never opened his mouth because he knew they would get, I think, 20 million dollars worth, and no questions asked--Iceland would get it. He drank like a fish. And he always slept. He was a very nice man, but not a very active member of the group.

And then one unhappy evening, Stafford Cripps came over. He chaired the meeting. He was a very austere man. He organized a night meeting, so we were summoned back to the Petit Palais in the evening. So, in stumbled the Icelandic minister, who sat down and fell, of course, soundly asleep. On that unhappy evening every delegation

[23]

had to speak up. It was a formal point; I think it was the salary of [Robert] Marjolin, the first Secretary-General of OEEC. Inevitably, Cripps came to this snoring man. And he said, "The Icelandic delegate has the floor." There was no reply whatsoever. Cripps got irritated and shouted, "The Icelandic delegate has the floor!" No reply, whatsoever. When he shouted for the third time, somebody woke the man up and as he woke up he said, in a very loud voice, "L'decision, s'il vous plait."

WILSON: That's marvelous.

VAN DER BEUGEL: The "one-world" concept, which broke down in '47, presumed the continuation of the United Nations world in which the Soviet Union, the U.S., and U.K. would continue their wartime lives; no regional things. Even in '46 the idea of regional organizations was poison for the United States.

WILSON: Yes. As I'm sure you know--I see The Politics of War over there, Gabriel Kolko's book--there is considerable argument in the States now, and elsewhere, about the idea that the United States much earlier rejected the approach of the U.N.

[24]

VAN DER BEUGEL: This whole revisionist school is crap.

WILSON: I'm glad to get it out. I think the same.

VAN DER BEUGEL: Crap; absolute crap.

WILSON: I'm glad to get an authoritative judgment on that.

VAN DER BEUGEL: Well, this isn't a. very sophisticated judgment, but to put it in one sentence, it is just a part of the masochists' attitude to the country.

WILSON: Very good. That's of great help.

VAN DER BEUGEL: Now, Milton Katch was superb. He's one of the wisest men in the U.S., in my opinion. I still see him.

WILSON: Was it a foregone conclusion that he would succeed Harriman?

VAN DER BEUGEL: I don't remember that. He had, of course, much less glamour than Harriman had.

WILSON: But he clearly was serving in a crucial role before Harriman left.

[25]

VAN DER BEUGEL: Oh, yes. It was the Eisenhower--[General Alfred M.] Gruenther relationship--that kind of relationship.

WILSON: Chief of staff.

VAN DER BEUGEL: Chief of staff; that was it.

WILSON: I must see him; I hope to see him next year.

VAN DER BEUGEL: Oh, he knows. He knows everything.

"Special relationship between Britain and the U.S.?" Well, this was played up in London without much substance. The American administration has not based itself on any special relationship with the U.K. at any moment since '47. There was a natural affinity, because of language. If there are 40 officers attached to the Pentagon from the NATO countries, the British officers walk around in a much easier way than the others, because of the wartime experience. But politically, to say that either Truman or Eisenhower, or Kennedy, or Johnson had based their policy on a special kind of relationship with the U.K., it is simply not true. If there is a question of any "special relationship"

[26]

in American foreign policy and these four administrations, it is the relationship with Germany, not with England.

WILSON: Might you say that there: was some desire, here again, on the part of the Embassy? Did you get any indication of this?

VAN DER BEUGEL: In London?

WILSON: Yes. The London Embassy was more sympathetic to this notion.

VAN DER BEUGEL: Well, they were sympathetic to the British, but I don't think that a man like David Bruce played it up that way. I don't think so. No.

WILSON: I can recall a marvelous memorandum that Katz wrote to Bruce or [Lewis] Douglas--I forget which--to the effect that the United States should allow Great Britain to be its agent in Europe, and Katz stated that if the British are our agents, then an agent must follow the wishes of its principal. It must carry out what our policy should be, and they were not doing that.

VAN DER BEUGEL: Yes. The ECA mission we have discussed.

[27]

"Would you comment on the period of transition from President Roosevelt to President Truman?"

I can't, because that was before. Well, I could add a lot, but you can add probably much more.

WILSON: That sort of is taken in by your comment about the Kolko book.

VAN DER BEUGEL: Yes.

"Truman to Eisenhower?" Not in the sense that there was a basic change in the policy towards Europe. I would say that Dulles was much more dogmatic in his support of "the Six" than Acheson ever would have been. I think that was the essential.

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List of Subjects Discussed

Acheson, Dean, 27
Annenberg, Walter H., 9

Bruce, David, 26

Caffery, Jefferson, 7
Clay, Lucius, 14-15, 17
Conant, James B., 8
Cripps, Stafford, 22-23

Douglas, Lewis, 8, 26
Dulles, John Foster, 15, 27
Division of Aid Conflict, 14, 16-19

Economic Cooperation Administration (ECA), 1, 5-7, 10-13, 17
Eisenhower, Dwight David, 27
Export-Import Bank, 10

Germany, post war development, 14-16

Harriman, Averell, 17, 24
Hirschfeld, H. M., 3
Hunter, Clarence, 2

Indonesian question w/Gr. Britain, 6-7

Johnson, Lyndon, 25
Joint Export-Import, 16

Katch, Milton, 24-26
Kennedy, J. F., 25

Marjolin, Robert, 5, 23
Marshall Plan, 1, 3-4, 11, 14-15, 19-20
McCloy, John J. 8

Office of the Special, Representative in Europe (OSR), 5-6, 17
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), 6

Paris Meeting of 1947, 20-23

Relations between State Dept. and ECA, 5-10
Roll, Eric, 5
Roosevelt, Franklin D., 27

Snoy, Jean, 5

Truman, Harry S. 25, 27

U.S. Department of Treasury, 11
U.S.-U.K. Relationship 25

Valentine, Alan, 2

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