U.S. FOREIGN AID

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27089, 11 July 1953, Page 7

U.S. FOREIGN AID

Stassen Advises Prolonging (Rec. 9.30 p rn^ ASHINGTON j u i y 9. The Director of Mutual Security (Mr Harold Stassen) told Senators today he felt that the United States would have to continue some sort of foreign aid programme for 10 years. Mr Stassen was testifying before the Senate Appropriations Committee concerning funds for foreign aid in the current financial year. He said he thought the Soviet threat would last a decade. Throughout that period, he said, it was his view that the United States would have to give military help to at least some of its free world allies. Economic aid could probably be ended sooner.

Mr Stassen said Turkey and Formosa were two nations close to the Communist perimeter which must have some military aid as long as the Soviet threat endured. There were signs that the foreignaid programme was right at the point of its most significant results. Referring to the recent disorders in East Berlin and other Soviet-occupied areas, he said workers behind the Iron Curtain were now willing to stand up and risk death at the hands of their Communist bosses. The United States Government planned to end all special defence financing of British and French rearmament production after next year. In the case of Britain, he said the resulting loss in dollars for balance of payments purposes would be partly cushioned by increased earnings on United States military orders placed in British factories, but such earnings would not ease or. assist Britain in meeting her internal budgetary problems. . “If they (Britain and France) exercise proper frugality and manage their programmes effectively, I am convinced that both countries can adjust themselves to the new programme and still carry out their extensive security commitments,” Mr Stassen said. It would be “imprudent and dangerous” not to provide the current aid authorised, as it was being given in the interest of United States security. The foreign aid programme represented “one of those measures which are indispensable to the defence of our liberties and to the preservation of freedom, the common heritage and civilisation of our neoole.”