More Military Aid

Although there has recently been some abatement in the Communist statements of inevitable military conflict, there has as yet been no moderation of their goal of eventual world domination, and no cessation of acts of aggression.

So last week a ten-member, blue-ribbon committee headed by Utilities Executive William H. Draper Jr. reported to President Eisenhower on the need for the U.S. to step up, not slow down, its military aid to its allies in the cold war.

Appointed by Ike last November to review the nation's military-assistance program, the committee members did some on-the-spot reporting themselves. Chairman Draper, 65, once Army Under Secretary (1947-49) and later top U.S. civilian representative to NATO (1952-53), personally inspected forces in the Korea-Japan-Formosa area. Oilman George Mc-Ghee, 47, an ex-Ambassador, to Turkey (1951-53), and Admiral Arthur Radford, tough-minded ex-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (1953-57), toured the Middle East. Operating in five such groups, the committee members returned to Washington, in March handed Ike an interim report warning that his $1.6 billion budget request for military aid was at least $400 million too low, specifically lacking in funds to arm NATO's deterrent forces with IRBMs.

Beating the Backlog. In last week's report, the final one to be made by the group, the Draper Committee's deepest worry was that the U.S. might be fooled into thinking that Congress had not cut dangerously into foreign-aid programs. Overall spending figures, the committee explained, are deceptive. During the Korean war, the U.S. built up an $8.5 billion backlog of military-aid appropriations. But since 1954 the U.S. has been delivering about $2.5 billion worth of arms to its allies--while congressional appropriations averaged only $1.5 billion a year'. The difference has been made up by digging into the backlog by $1 billion a year. With the backlog now down to $2.5 billion, barely enough to provide lead time on complicated weapons like missiles and jet airplanes, arms deliveries will take "a drastic decline of 40% or more" by fiscal 1962 unless Congress increases the annual appropriation.

But the Democratic Congress considers foreign aid bad politics. The House last month slashed Ike's "rock bottom" $1.6 billion military-aid request to $1.3 billion, sent it to the Senate. Fighting back, Ike last week sent along Draper's strong report, demanded repairs on the "dangerously low" aid bill. Draper, more explicit, called the congressional cuts "a serious security danger for the United States." His committee found that military aid, along with economic aid, is basic to the U.S.'s "entire forward strategy and hope for the future."

Taking the Lead. Said the committee: "Our horizon is too often the narrow confines of the cold war. We must, while we defend ourselves, build toward the world we and other free men seek ... a world grounded in the inherent worth and dignity of the individual . . . Not only by reason of its power, but also because of its proven capacity to combine diverse elements into a stronger whole, the United States is best suited to take the lead in bringing about this mobilization and utilization of the free world's talents."

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