Argosy of Trivia

"Some days you can't make a nickel," groaned William S. Gaud last week after Congress called for an accounting of corruption and mismanagement in the Agency for International Development. The AID administrator's dejection--if not his figure of speech--was understandable. In the past month, three separate cases of "irregularities," resulting in the suspension or resignation of five officials, have plagued the agency. At the same time, a State Department report on AID'S operations catalogued at least $6.5 million worth of waste and inefficiency in 30 countries from Afghanistan to Viet Nam.

The report, compiled by State Department Inspector General J. K. Mansfield, told of an argosy of luxuries and trivia bestowed under AID financing: a $2,111 car for the Japanese embassy in Santo Domingo, a stereophonic hi-fi system for the El Salvador embassy, wine glasses and $10,000 worth of pastel-colored bidets for the Dominican Republic.

Flimflam. Gaud, 60, promptly issued "rectification orders." Embarrassed AID officials started reshipping 18 crates of tool kits--which had rusted on Buenos Aires docks for nine years--to Paraguay. They also cut off aid to Vietnamese businessmen who had been accused of importing antiaircraft weapon parts only to sell them to the Viet Cong.

Of far greater concern to Gaud and the Administration were charges of malfeasance against AID personnel that indirectly touched several longtime associates of Vice President Hubert Humphrey's. Herbert J. Waters, 55, director of AID'S "war on hunger," resigned recently at Gaud's direct request, after three men under Waters' jurisdiction were implicated in a $250,000 flim-flam with a Belgian firm that AID paid for work never done. Waters managed Humphrey's senatorial campaigns in 1954 and 1960, was the Minnesota Senator's administrative assistant until he was appointed to the $27,000-a-year AID job in 1961.

Contrite Candor. Mentioned in another AID scandal was Max M. Kampelman, 47, a Washington lawyer who served as Humphrey's legislative assistant for six years and is still regarded as a close political confidant of the Vice President's. Representing a Minneapolis company called Napco Industries Inc., Kampelman signed a $2,300,000 loan agreement with AID in 1962 to send auto-parts plant equipment to New Delhi. Napco failed to deliver, and the Justice Department recently filed suit to collect the $2,300,000.

In a contritely candid performance last week before the House Government Operations Subcommittee, Gaud pleaded mea culpa for AID's foulups. In defense of his agency, however, Gaud pointed out that in the seven years of its existence, Congress has never seen fit to put AID on a permanent basis, financing it from year to year on an ever-diminishing, hard-fought budget. AID is now operating on the slimmest yearly allowance ever ($1.9 billion). As a result, it has been unable to attract enough qualified personnel. In the wake of AID'S latest trouble, Congress may slash the agency's budget even more savagely than usual next month when Gaud presents the Administration's request for $3 billion in the coming fiscal year.

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