CONGRESS MAY CUT FOREIGN AID BILL

Press, Volume XCIII, Issue 27961, 7 May 1956, Page 13

CONGRESS MAY CUT FOREIGN AID BILL

(Rec. 10 p.m.) WASHINGTON, May 5. President Eisenhower’s request for 4.900 000.000 dollars for foreign aid in the 1956-57 fiscal year, will come up for scrutiny next week by the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Mr John Hollister, head of the International Co-operation Administration, will be the first witness called when the committee begins intensive work on the bill on Monday. Last Monday, the day before he left for Paris to attend the Atlantic Pact meeting. Mr Dulles, the Secretary of State, introduced the measure to the committee with the warning that slashing cuts would make a shambles of United States foreign policy. A Reuter correspondent said today that oolitical experts were convinced that in this election year, some cuts were inevitable, but opinions varied widely on what the cuts would be. One official with long experience of piloting foreign aid bills through Congress said he feared that a current proposal for a thorough study of foreign aid policies might cause confusion among Senators and Congressmen. . President Eisenhower reiterated yesterday what Mr Dulles had said earlier —that such a study would be aimed at the future improvement of foreign aid programmes and should not affect the bill now before Congress for the fiscal ye?r beginning next July 1. . . The mere fact that such a study is being planned has*brought suggestions that Congress should delay action on the bill until the results of the review have been issued, the Reuter correspondent said. Another factor militating against the bill is its size—and the way it has been handled, he said. Officials admit that it was psychologically a mistake to describe the bill as substantially the same as last year’s, when in fact it asks for 1.400.000.000 dollars more. In fact, actual soending is designed to increase only slightly from 4.200,000.000 dollars to 4,400.000.000 dollars The difference is being sought in an effort to replenish the “pipeline.” which is becoming depleted after last year’s appropriation request of 3.500.000.000 dollars was cut by COngreSS. • • • The most notable innovation m this year’s bill is its proposal for longterm economic aid. which has run into opposition from Senator Walter George (Democrat. Georgia), chairman of the Senate Foreign, Relations Committee. He is standing for re-election in November and neither President Eisenhower nor Mr Dulles has yet been ab’e to persuade him to change his mind. The correspondent said that basically there is little controversy on the need for a foreign aid programme, but in the face of the Soviet economic drive and of widespread criticism that the United States is pursuing outdated policies, voices are being raised on all sides calling for a radical change of direction. U.N. Distribution Opposed President Eisenhower today questioned whether it would be practical for the United States to turn over a • great part of its foreign economic aid ■ programme to the United Nations. He 1 told his press conference that he

doubted if it would ever be possible to divorce international politics from such an activity. For that reason, he said, he believed it would continue to be necessary for the United States to rely mainly on country-by-country agreements such as are now in effect.

The idea of putting economic aid largely under the United Nations has been suggested in several quarters recently. The French Foreign Minister (Mr Christian Pineau), is reported to have discused with Mr Dulles the possibility of something along that line.