A Romp with Pompadour

He was not opposed to foreign aid in general, Ohio Democrat Wayne Hays emphasized to the House during last week's debate on the $2.9 billion foreign aid authorization bill. But he was opposed to $600,000 earmarked under the bill for Dictator Rafael Trujillo's Dominican Republic, especially as, at the very same time, Rafael Trujillo Jr. was spending a bit of his $600,000 annual allowance on a $5,500 Mercedes-Benz and a $17,000 chinchilla coat in the U.S. for Cinemagyar Zsa Zsa Gabor (TIME, May 19). Predicted Ohio's Hays, with spade-calling confidence in his congressional immunity: "If he keeps on fooling around with Zsa Zsa Gabor, who apparently is the most expensive courtesan since Madame de Pompadour,* the old man is going to have to raise the ante."

The ante worried Hays more than the morals of the matter ("I do not know what the quid pro quo was") or the economics ("He is doing what the President says -'Buy Now' "). To keep it from soaring higher at U.S. expense, Hays introduced an amendment striking out $400,000 in military aid and $200,000 in technical assistance funds to Trujillo Sr.

Muffling its laughter, the House decided (79-32) that there is still a case for Dominican Republic aid. Foreign aid advocates swallowed hard, knowing well that Trujillo Jr., a lieutenant general in command of the Dominican Republic's two-bit air force and a student at the U.S. Army's prestige-making Command and General Staff College, is a prime example of the kind of irresponsible foolishness that gives any real enemy of foreign aid just the kind of potent ammunition that makes headlines. Flying into Washington the same day for a nightclub appearance, Zsa Zsa Gabor quickly dismissed the Congress with impeccable style: "Are the magnolia trees in blossom?" asked the platinum-haired Hungarian of Washingtonians sensitive about their cherry blooms. "That's the one thing I remember about this wonderful city."

* As mistress of Louis XV of France for nearly 20 enduring years, Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson d'Etioles, Marquise de Pompadour, boasted no Mercedes-Benz or chinchilla coats, but managed to spend before her death at 42 an estimated 36 million francs on gowns, jewels, furniture, art work and seven estates, including the Palais de 1'Elysee in Paris, today the home of the Presidents of France.

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