ECONOMIC AID TO INDOCHINA

Press, Volume LXXXVI, Issue 26123, 27 May 1950, Page 7

ECONOMIC AID TO INDOCHINA

U.S. Programme Announced “ASSISTANCE ONLY COMPLEMENTARY ” LONDON, May 25. The United States announced to-day a programme of economic aid for IndoChina. but warned that the main responsibility for restoring stability to that war-torn country rested with France and the associated States of Indo-China, reports the Saigon correspondent of the Associated Press. The announcement was sent to the French and Indo-Chinese Governments in a letter from Mr Edmund Gullion. United States Legation Charge d’Affaires in Saigon. The letter made no mention of the extent of the aid programme or of its specific nature. However, observers expect that the programme will begin with an initial allocation of about 23.500,000 dollars, reported to have been recommended by the United States mission to South-east Asia under Mr Allen Griffin. The announcement said that the programme was designed to reinforce t|ie joint efforts of France and the Governments and peoples of Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, but the assistance was only complementary “without any intention of substitution" to the governments’ efforts. An Economic Co-operation Administration mission will begin functioning in Saigon within a few days to administer the aid programme to the States, which are bow threatened by ! internal Communist rebellion and by i the presence of Chinese Communists on the border. Mr Robert Blum, former chief of the overseas territories division of the Econoniic Co-operation Administration mission in France, will head the mission. Aid will be granted in I accordance with separate bilateral agreements to be reached between the United States and each Indo-Chinese State, but economic aid operations may begin before the agreements are concluded with funds from the 75,000,000 dollars appropriated by Congress for use in South-east Asia. Airliner Crashes in Andes. — Twentyeight persons were killed when a Lansa Airways DC3 airliner crashed and burned on a slope on the Galeroas volcano in the Andes range. Southern Columbia. The airliner carried 26 passengers and a crew of three. Only one survivor was found.—New York, May 25.