U.S. FOREIGN AID

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28897, 18 May 1959, Page 11

U.S. FOREIGN AID

Senator Calls For Halt

(Rec. 730 p.m.) WASHINGTON, May 15. The assistant Senate Democratic leader. Senator Mike Mansfield. called today for a halt to all United States economic and military aid grants within three years, to end waste and corruption and head off a public revolt against the whole aid idea. Outright grants, described as ' ‘give-aways 7 ’ by critics of the programme, account for about 75 per cent, of the 3900 million dollars in new foreign aid funds requested by President Eisenhower for the next fiscal year, starting June 1. Senator Mansfield said he will fight for amendments to the pending Foreign Aid Bin to: Abolish the International Cooperation Administration as a semi-autonomous agency and bring it completely under the State Department; Put all military arms aid directly in the Defence Department Budget, and vest control over its spending in the Secretary of State; Make the figures on military aid and defence support as public as those on economic aid or technical assistance. The Senator said that what he called the costly shortcomings of the foreign aid programme were in the area “of heavy and continuing grants and gifts of military aid,” and in the grants for defence, economic support and for special assistance. ■ ‘These are the areas of decay in foreign aid," he said. “These are the areas of great waste and inefficiency.”