The Senate Rebels Against Foreing Aid

THE notion that the U.S. had finally achieved maturity in a confident and realistic appraisal of its role in world affairs was badly damaged last week. Out of the Viet Nam trauma, the nation, it was assumed, had learned the limitations of its power. The Nixon Doctrine sensibly equated goals with means, pledging economic and military aid--but not automatic U.S. military involvement--to those countries whose stability appeared vital to peace and to the basic interests of the U.S. President Nixon's personal ventures in summitry via Peking and Moscow were clearly an overdue recognition of global realities. It seemed far less likely than in the past that U.S. policy could be affected by emotional and irrational whims. But then the U.S. Senate, by a stunning margin of 41 to 27, voted to kill all new authorization for foreign aid--endangering a program that has been a consistent and generally enlightened component of the nation's foreign policy for a quarter-century.

Childish Retribution. The Senate's unexpected action came only four nights after the U.S. had suffered a humiliating defeat in the United Nations, failing to persuade many of the nations that had long enjoyed U.S. financial support to join in the vain fight to keep Taiwan in the U.N. Although the causes were actually complex and long-building, to much of the outside world the Senate's rejection of the Administration's foreign aid bill smacked of childish retribution --the act of a bully lashing out because his shins had been kicked. Leaping to conclusions, the London Daily Express charged that the Senate had acted out of "bitterness against the small nations who turned against America" on the China question.

The situation in the Senate was much more complicated than that; yet there was some validity in the linkage of the foreign aid and U.N. votes. Even liberal Senators like Idaho's Frank Church cited the U.N. vote as contributing to their disillusionment with foreign aid. "We've been told for years that foreign aid gives us influence and leverage with other nations, and the China vote showed that it doesn't," asserted Church.

The killing of the foreign aid authorization bill, which would have provided $4.1 billion for use in fiscal years 1972 and 1973, was performed by Senators acting out of a confusing variety of motives in a mood of frustration, impatience and anger. The voting line-up indicated the unusual crosscurrents. Uncharacteristically, more Democrats than Republicans voted against the foreign aid bill; 26 Democrats opposed it, only eight voted for it, while 19 Republicans supported the bill and 15 helped kill it. Negative votes were cast by such normally opposing Senators as Democrats J. William Fulbright of Arkansas and James Eastland of Mississippi and Republicans Mark Hatfield of Oregon and Paul Fannin of Arizona. The fatal vote came after more than nine hours of acrimonious debate and while Senators were yearning to get away for the weekend. Thirty-two Senators were absent.

Apart from the psychological impact of the U.N. China vote, the Senate rejection of aid hinged on longer-range considerations, including: THE WAR. Critics of the Administration's Indochina policies contend that foreign aid has been the forerunner of U.S. military involvement, and despite the Nixon Doctrine, this could happen again. They were sharply opposed, for example, to the inclusion of $341 million in aid to sustain the shaky government of Premier Lon Nol in Cambodia. They were also angered at the Administration's all-out and successful effort to defeat the Cooper-Church amendment, which would have forbidden any use of U.S. funds in Indochina except to withdraw U.S. troops. This lost by only three votes as White House officials threatened a Nixon veto of the whole aid bill if the restrictive amendment were included. If Nixon would do that, some Senate doves asked, how badly did he really want foreign aid?

THE ECONOMY. Although the disputed funds represent only a small share of the federal budget, they would have sharply increased foreign aid expenditures. Moreover, other foreign aid funds, mainly for military purposes, are also pending, and Senators in both parties wondered if a time of economic crisis at home was a time to increase expenditures abroad, in view of the large balance of payments deficit.

REFORM. Foreign aid has always been controversial in the Congress, proving a handy and often valid target for charges of mismanagement, waste and corruption. It has sometimes seemed to earn as much enmity as friendship for the U.S., and many Senators doubt that it has achieved its aims. Congress has often drastically reduced the foreign aid requests of Presidents, including a slash of one-third in President Johnson's fiscal 1964 request and 40% in his 1969 program. Cries for reform have grown louder. In voting against the bill last week. Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield urged a whole "new foreign aid concept," complaining that the program had become a "grab bag" with no coherent principles guiding its distribution. He and others suggested funneling funds through multinational agencies to remove resentment against U.S. dollar diplomacy. NEW NATIONALISM. While many Senators contended that they would support a better-managed and more clearly principled foreign aid program, the vote did indicate a rising nationalist or isolationist trend in the U.S. Nixon's own doctrine, perhaps unfairly, has been interpreted as reflecting such a trend. Nixon can be faulted for stimulating an America-first mood by his protectionist New Economic Policy, including import surcharges. Some of his recent postures seemed to proclaim an attitude of "You won't have America to kick around any more." Even Foreign Relations Chairman Fulbright, long a champion of bridge-building internationalism, complained to a colleague last week: "Why the hell should I vote for this bill when we're waiting for sewers and roads in Arkansas?"

After the vote, Nixon called it "a highly irresponsible action that undoes 25 years of constructive bipartisan foreign policy and produces unacceptable risks to the national security of the United States." Secretary of State William Rogers termed it "deeply disheartening" and warned: "The U.S. cannot afford to retreat from the realities of our interdependence with the rest of mankind." Yet the Administration had contributed to its Senate defeat, first by applying unusual muscle to kill war-related restrictions in the bill, then by making almost no effort to ensure passage of the entire package on the final vote.

Lingering Death. The ultimate effect of the vote was uncertain. Mansfield said that it "may well be the end of the foreign assistance program," although the death would be "a lingering" one, because nearly $5 billion in unspent funds remains in the pipeline. Yet specific projects in the new bill--including military aid to Israel--were at least stalled. They also included $565 million in development loans to sustain the economy of South Viet Nam--a loss that AID Administrator John Hannah said could "undermine all of our efforts to bring stability to Southeast Asia."

Some $140 million in voluntary contributions to U.N. development projects were in the bill, as well as $250 million in clearly humanitarian help for East Pakistani refugees. Included, too, were funds for the military regime of Greece, which aroused some senatorial opposition. Moreover, funds already in the pipeline are committed to previous programs. Unless the Senate reverses itself, Hannah contends, foreign aid will end on Nov. 15, when the current authorization to pay the salaries of some 12,000 AID employees expires.

It seems difficult to believe that U.S. foreign policy can be so abruptly changed. With all of its flaws, the $143 billion spent by the U.S. since President Truman authorized aid to the Communist-threatened governments of Greece and Turkey in 1947 represents a historic contribution to world stability. To be sure, in the Marshall Plan for the restoration of war-devastated Europe and even in the Point Four program that first extended aid to undeveloped nations, the program has always been motivated primarily by U.S. self-interest. In a very real sense, it was the American answer to Marxist ideology and Communist strategy. It was indeed dollar diplomacy. Yet both dollars and diplomacy are vital to the search for peace in a technologically developing world. Perhaps last week's dramatic jolt will yet lead to a rethinking of foreign aid. But the cause of peace and the world's confidence in America were seriously damaged by the spectacle of the U.S. acting so precipitously on matters of such moment.

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