U.S. Relieved At Filipino Welcome

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29232, 16 June 1960, Page 13

U.S. Relieved At Filipino Welcome

[Specially written for the NJZ.P.A. by FRANK OLIVER] (Rec. 10 p.m.) NEW YORK, June 14.

People are breathing a bit more easily since the rapturous welcome given the President in the Philippines and the assurance he will get a similar one in Formosa. It is felt here that this will to some extent influence the Japanese dissidents and that, in any event, they have probably shot their main bolt for Mr Hagerty.

This trip is quite unlike those made last year through Europe and into Asia. Many have asked why, in view of the Japanese feeling, he could not just call that part off; but whereas the previous trips were to dramatise American peace efforts, on this journey the President is urgently trying to reassure a group of Allies very much exposed to Russia and China. There is a hard core of opinion in Washington that China is going to be much more aggressive on the international scene than Russia. It is necessary, therefore, that these exposed Allies be told and shown that they have the backing of the United States military and economic strength in any coming test. It is recognised that some of them were shaken by the U-2 incident and its aftermath, including. those threats from Marshal Malinovsky; and so it became very necessary to assure them that the United States is strong enough to underwrite the risks they are undoubtedly running in the geographical front line in the cold war. If this was not sufficient reason for the journey and the arranged visit to Japan, there was also the point that failure to show up in Tokyo could do the Kishi Government no good and might bring about its defeatsomething no one here wishes to contemplate at this juncture in Far Eastern affairs.

The determination to visit Tokyo is a calculated risk and, in the view of many officials, apparently a thoroughly justified one. It is widely regarded as highly important that both the Tokyo and the Formosa regimes remain intact if Peking is going to start trouble in South-east Asia.

Washington and the rest of the country will keep its collective fingers crossed during the visit to Japan, but then comes a part of the journey that will be far

more pleasant than promised some weeks ago. It was vitally necessary to visit South Korea, but now, Instead of dealing with an acknowledged totalitarian, the President is reported to be ready to make a speech praising the Korean people for their recent revolution and reasserting American faith in dembcratic institutions and processes. Foreign Aid Cuts However, while he is being cheered to the echo round Southeast Asia, the President’s mission is not being helped by the Congress at home. Before leaving, he begged Congress to give him the foreign aid appropriation he has asked for. The House Appropriations Committee has slashed almost 800 million dollars from his request. This is a remarkable example of the influence of a single man in Congress, a man who is almost never heard about after the foreign aid appropriations have been recommended. He is Mr Otto Passman, a Democrat, of Louisiana, known as the Foreign Aid Bill “axeman.” Over the years he has become foreign aid’s bitterest critic in Congress and has managed almost singlehanded to get amounts ranging from 627 million dollars to 1400 million dollars slashed from foreign aid appropriations. As chairman of an appropriations sub-committee, he naturally exercises considerable influence over other members and in recent years the House has somewhat subserviently gone along because it is a House habit to accept committee recommendations. Mr Passman, who boasts a wardrobe of M shirts, and 48 suits and who still calls himself “just a country boy,” lays about him with a woodsman’s axe on foreign aid because he says he wishes to “end this crazy system of spending more money every year than we are taking in.”