Program Notes

It was just after 9 o'clock one morning last week when President Eisenhower entered the Cabinet Room to open the conferences with congressional leaders on his programs for 1958. The 31 conferees got to their feet and gave him a round of applause. After taking his place in his big, straight-backed, black leather Cabinet chair, he explained that he felt well, but was conscious of speaking more slowly after his stroke (no one in the room could detect it) and would therefore talk less than usual. During the rest of the sessions he frequently came and went, leaving Vice President Nixon to preside while he went back to the business at his own desk or took time off for resting.

Hardly a Success. The first day of the legislative sessions was set aside to discuss foreign policy with leaders of both parties. The second day was spent reviewing domestic programs with Republicans, headed by Senate Leader Bill Knowland and House Leader Joe Martin. The meetings were held weeks earlier than usual, so as to give ranking members of Congress a chance to participate in the formulation of policy. The speedup was hardly a success: Republicans were indignant because the Democrats were called in so early; Democrats, who had long fumed at being left out until the last moment, now complained that they had not been informed of the proposals to be discussed.

Secretary of State John Foster Dulles first presented the U.S. plans for the NATO conference in Paris (see FOREIGN NEWS), already pretty well spelled out in the newspapers. From NATO, discussion turned to the rest of the program:

RECIPROCAL TRADE: Dulles and Commerce Secretary Sinclair Weeks said the Administration will ask a five-year extension of the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act with its authorization for the President to cut tariffs by as much as 5% a year. Speaker Sam Rayburn, recalling that the Administration's 1955 request for a three-year extension had barely squeezed through the House, warned that foreign trade next year will require a herculean Administration effort.

FOREIGN AID: The Administration will request new appropriations of $3.9 billion for the Mutual Security program, as compared with $3.4 billion in new and re-appropriated funds voted for this fiscal year. When James H. Smith Jr., new head of the International Cooperation Administration, began lecturing the leaders about the importance of his program, Massachusetts' Democratic Representative John McCormack whispered to Massachusetts' Republican Senator Leverett Saltonstall: "Another one of your Harvard boys, huh, Lev?" Hard-working Jim Smith, Harvard '31, left the room shortly afterward with a worried look.

DEFENSE SPENDING: No final figures were set, but Defense Secretary Neil McElroy indicated that the cost of national defense will come to about $40 billion--$2 billion above this year's ceiling. The increase will go mostly toward missile development. Georgia's Democratic Senator Richard Russell was notably skeptical about the defense program. New Mexico's Democratic Senator Clinton Anderson lit into Deputy Defense Secretary Donald Quarles about the cost of interservice rivalries in the missile field. President Eisenhower broke up the argument: "As President, I want you to know that I hate waste, that I hate duplication, that I hate costly interservice rivalries just as much as you do. As a military man, I would hate to think of us not pressing forward, regardless of cost and possible duplication in the missile field, for fear that we just might miss something good."

Dose of Urgency. When it came time next day to present domestic proposals to Republican leaders, the only Cabinet member with a ready-to-deliver program was Labor Secretary James Mitchell (see LABOR). Postmaster General Arthur Summerfield renewed his pitch for postal rate increases. Health, Education and Welfare Secretary Marion Folsom promised to develop some sort of plan to improve U.S. scientific training (significantly, Folsom said nothing whatever about the Administration's last school construction program, which was killed in the House). Agriculture Secretary Ezra Taft Benson talked about saving $500 million by eliminating the acreage reserve section of the soil-bank program (a good part of that saving might be offset by increased subsidies). Treasury Secretary Robert Anderson, while avoiding talk of tax increases, plugged for renewal of the 52% corporation tax rate.

The Democratic leaders were openly critical after their foreign policy session. Said House Majority Leader McCormack: "It is about time the Administration got out of its dream world and into the world of reality." Said Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson: "The Administration needs a big dose of urgency." Privately, the Republicans felt much the same way. The general consensus was that the Administration had a long way to go before its ideas were whipped together into a salable congressional program--though time is rapidly running out.

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