Word: spaak
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Defense or Liberation? If war came, would the U.S. fight in Western Europe? The Europeans are uncertain about that. Harry Truman's St. Patrick's Day speech to Congress, which implied a promise of military help, was not enough for them. Belgium's Premier Paul-Henri Spaak appeared shortly in Washington and asked for a definite commitment. It was not forthcoming. Pundit Walter Lippmann and others noted that the U.S. could hardly help going to war if Russia attacked Western Europe, since U.S. troops east of the Rhine would have to be pushed aside first. But Europeans...
...Brussels last week, the man who, as much as any single individual, is responsible for this state of affairs told how it had come about. He is Paul-Henri Spaak, Premier of Belgium. With his cherubic frown, his bulging forehead, his pugnacious lower lip, he bears a startling resemblance to Winston Churchill; in the whole grey and sagging circle of European leaders, he is one of the few men with a spark of Churchillian fire. With one hand thrust truculently into his trouser pocket, he uses the other to tick off the reasons for Belgian prosperity...
...remained untouched, as had the country's foreign financial assets. Belgian industry kept working (on German orders) throughout the war. The country was quickly liberated, and its industry went to work for the Allies. All that was luck. But there was more to it. "Good sense," says Spaak, "knows how to make use of good luck...
...most spectacular piece of good sense was displayed by Belgium's government in exile (which included Paul-Henri Spaak as Foreign Minister) when it decided that Belgium would need hard work and that hard work required incentives. The plans were put into operation on September 8, 1944, the day the government returned to Brussels. Like every German-occupied country, Belgium was flooded with excess paper money (almost five times as many francs were in circulation as before the war). Finance Minister Camille Gutt called in all bank notes larger than 100 francs, returned no more than 2,000 francs...
...time to wash up a bit before playing host to a royal visitor: Belgium's Regent Charles-Theodore-Henri-Antoine Meinrad, Count of Flanders. Prince Charles arrived amid a din of sirens. He wore the khaki uniform of a major general, was accompanied by Belgian Premier Paul-Henri Spaak. A tall young man with a penchant for playing ping-pong, he looked rather bored...