Though Soviet citizens have long sought valuta -- convertible currency with real purchasing power -- the country's worsening economy has turned the search for dollars and marks into a manic scramble.

Congress overwhelmingly enacted Marshall Plan legislation, until June 30, 1952, when the last shipments of mat�riel and talent�ranging from vitamins to valuta, feed grains to corporate planners�reached the Continent, the U.S. had pumped $13.5 billion into 16 European nations,* an amount that averaged a bit more than 1% of the U.S.'s gross national product each year.

What all of us, from the Thuringian Forest to Sheboygan, must realize is that to survive we need, along with armor, A-bombs and valuta, sisu.

Butter, cheese, eggs, white bread, caviar, fish, that they and their children should have eaten ; textiles and leather that should have sup plied them and their children with shoes and clothes, were shipped abroad ... to obtain the valuta with which to pay for the foreign machinery and the foreign services.

Britain's move turned this prized valuta into crisp, imposing, worthless souvenirs.