Debating Its Doom

To eye and ear, the desultory discussion in the Senate seemed like anything but what it actually was: one of the most significant U.S. foreign policy debates in years.

Arkansas Democrat William Fulbright, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, stood casually with one hand in a pocket, spoke in an offhand manner: "Mr. President, it is my task today to commence the debate on the foreign assistance bill of 1963." Although long one of the Senate's foremost advocates of foreign aid, Fulbright demonstrated that this time he really did find his task painful. "I tend to share the view of many members of this body," he said, "that at least portions of the foreign aid program are obsolescent." He urged the Kennedy Administration "not to delay embarking upon a full-scale re-examination of foreign aid requirements before the next session of Congress, which is approaching at alarming speed."

Apologetic & Symptomatic. Fulbright's apologetic tone was symptomatic of the fact that even foreign aid's best congressional friends realize that the program, in its present form, is doomed. "The reason why the program is in trouble--and it is in trouble," declared New York's Republican Senator Jacob Javits, "is that neither this Administration nor the previous Administration understood what the private enterprise system is capable of contributing, and has failed to use it." Oregon Democrat Wayne Morse charged that U.S. taxpayers were being "rooked by our worldwide-flung giveaway foreign aid program."

The Senate is so sour on foreign aid that before the first week of debate was over Fulbright found that he could not even defend the $4.2 billion that his own committee had recommended in its authorization bill. He agreed with Majority Leader Mike Mansfield and G.O.P. Leader Everett Dirksen to cut it to about $3.8 billion. President Kennedy originally had sought $4.9 billion, dropped his request to $4.5 billion after a critical report by a special committee headed by General Lucius Clay. The House has approved only $3.5 billion.

Fulbright's retreat was aimed at avoiding an even worse fate for the bill. Morse announced that he has more than a dozen amendments to offer, needs about three weeks of debate to explain them all. Senator Everett Dirksen took exception to this, enlivened the debate briefly by ridiculing Morse. "With a decent approach and with no Senator feeling that all the wisdom reposes in him alone, we can get out of here on schedule," said Dirksen. Otherwise, he predicted, Senators will sit around their Christmas tree Dec. 25 "in their red flannel pajamas," watching their grandchildren, and suddenly remember that "we didn't finish foreign aid." Morse led a move to try to send the whole bill back to the committee with instructions to completely reorganize the aid program; the move failed, 46 to 29.

Neglect & Overgenerosity. The committee itself had practically invited such action in a report on the bill. It ticked off an imposing list of complaints about the aid program: "There have been instances of failure and inefficiency in the field, administrative and organizational shortcomings, imbalances in the kinds and amounts of aid extended to certain countries, overgenerosity to some recipients and the neglect of others, more deserving recipients, the proliferation of aid programs--especially military aid programs--to an ever growing number of countries, and inexplicable delays in terminating assistance to countries which no longer need it or which have failed to make productive use of it." The report said the committee had seriously considered terminating the whole aid program by June 30, 1965, refrained from doing so only "in the expectation, which it hopes will not prove unjustified, that the Administration will submit a fiscal year 1965 program to Congress which has been revamped in major respects."

While defending this year's bill, Fulbright told the Senate that he is sympathetic to any reorganization that would take military aid out of the program, put it under the Defense Department, and that would channel economic aid loans through such agencies as the World Bank and the International Development Association. The Senate debate left little doubt that only such a fundamental reorganization, next year if not this year, will keep foreign aid alive in any form.

Even if such revisions are beaten back in the Senate, this year's foreign aid legislation still will face massive trouble. The programs now being chewed up in both chambers are merely the authorization bills that, in effect, set maximum fund limits. The actual appropriations bill now is being hammered, honed and virtually hacked to death by Louisiana Democrat Otto Passman, who heads a House Appropriations subcommittee on foreign operations. Recent Administrations have learned to expect merciless treatment from Passman, but the Kennedy Administration is apt to be shocked by the figure Passman seems set on this year: a mere $2.7 billion.

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