Aid and Conscience

Americans who feel that foreign aid should be not only an instrument of Realpolitik but of moral judgment have two difficult cases to worry about. One is Greece, where in 1967 a clique of colonels overthrew a shaky but democratic and legally elected regime. After delivering some lectures and pressing for the restoration of democratic institutions, last September the U.S. lifted an embargo on deliveries of heavy military equipment to the Greek junta. An even more painful dilemma for the conscientious concerns Pakistan. In March the government there launched savage warfare against the East Pakistanis, who were seeking greater autonomy for their part of the divided country (TIME cover, Aug. 2). The U.S. quickly announced that it would stop authorizing arms shipments, though in fact they have continued.

Now, the normally docile Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives has produced a startling if largely symbolic expression of dismay. Last week the House followed the committee's recommendation with a 200-to-192 vote to deny further U.S. military aid to Greece until the colonels restore democracy in free elections, or unless the President determines that there are "overriding requirements of national security" for continuing it. The bill would also halt economic and arms aid to Pakistan until the President decides that "reasonable stability" has been restored there, and that the millions of Bengali refugees now in India have been allowed to return to their homes and regain their property in East Pakistan.

Irritated in Athens. The loophole in the aid-to-Greece clause was big enough to drive a Patton tank through, and it was virtually certain that the Administration would do just that. Greece's role in NATO and the U.S. Navy's need for Sixth Fleet bases in the eastern Mediterranean could easily be construed as "overriding requirements." The net effect of the House vote, if the Senate concurs, would be to cut military aid to the colonels from Nixon's requested $118 million in this fiscal year to $90 million, the same level as last year.

In Athens, an irritated Premier George Papadopoulos declared that whether Greece should hold elections in one year or 20 was for his regime alone to decide. Simultaneously, his government drafted a new press code that requires foreign as well as Greek newsmen to report in conformity with "Hellenic-Christian traditions." The House committee's action in calling U.S. Ambassador Henry J. Tasca home from Athens to testify in closed session was an unusual display of congressional displeasure.

Hunger Problem. As for the Pakistani regime, it could find considerable solace in Nixon's press conference statement. "We do not favor the idea that the U.S. should cut off economic assistance to Pakistan," he said, since to do so would make the refugee problem worse. Nixon spoke hopefully of U.S. efforts, both direct and through the United Nations, "that will deal with the problem of hunger in East Pakistan, which would reduce the refugee flow into India and which will, we trust, in the future look toward a viable political settlement." No such settlement was in sight (see THE WORLD). Some felt that the President was overpaying a debt of gratitude to Pakistan's President Yahya Khan for his help in Henry Kissinger's secret trip to Peking. A likelier rationale: the Administration feels that by cutting off aid, the U.S. would lose all leverage with Yahya.

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