Domestic, International Problems Face Kennedy

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30026, 10 January 1963, Page 9

Domestic, International Problems Face Kennedy

(N.Z J’A.-Reutse—Copyright) WASHINGTON, January 9. President Kennedy flew back to Washington from sunny Florida yesterday to face a growing list of international and domestic problems.

The President has been on holiday at Palm Beach since before Christinas, when he flew home from a meeting in the Bahamas with the British Prime Minister (Mr Macmillan).

The “holiday” has included a number of high-level conferences

with his Cabinet members on defence, international affairs, agriculture and the Administration’s programme to go before Congress.

The eighty-eighth Congress will meet today. In the midterm elections last November the Democrats held their large controlling majorities, but there are still blocks to important domestic legislation proposed by the President, such as medical care for ttfe aged. Federal aid to education, and a new farm programme designed to cut down surpluses.

The Administration’s attempt to overcome the obstacles will hold the centre of the stage. The opening battle in this situation will come today when the vote is

taken by the House of Representatives whether to retain an enlarged Rules Committee of 15—as desired by the President—■or to revert to the old 12-man group. The issue is whether the conservative-dominated committee of 12 shall be aUowed to bottle up proposed legislation as it has in the past, or whether the addition of three more liberally-inclined members shall again be approved, as it was last year, to help break the committee’s threatened legislative log jam. Much of the President’s domestic programme last year was defeated by a handful of votes. It is Mr Kennedy’s hope that, with the election of a few new Democrats as a result of November’s election, the conservative coalition of Republicans and Southern Democrats can be beaten and the tide turned. Apart from the jockeying for power in Congress, the most important piece of new legislation this session will be

the Administration's promised ball to cut taxes and to instiute tax reforms. Mr Kennedy still has to announce the details.

The President wiU go before the Congress on Monday to outline his domestic and foreign policy programmes for the year in the traditional State of the Union message.

High on the list of international problems is expected to be his concern for maintaining the strength of the North Atlantic Treaty alliance amid signs of public restiveness from Britain and the other European partners. Interwoven with this concern, which embraces political, defence and economic questions, is an expected fullscale Congressional investigation into the President’s decision to abandon the Skybolt air-launched ballistic missile programme. Other major foreign problems demanding the President’s attention will be: the development of East-West relations as a result of his successful handling of the Cuban crisis; the effect on the world picture of the Chinese invasion of India last year; British - American military assistance to India; the Allied attempt to bring about Indian-Pakistan talks on the Kashmir problem; Britain's attempt to enter the European Economic Community; and the continued fighting in South Vietnam, with growing United States casualties there. The President and his top

advisers briefed the Congressional leaders of both his Democratic Party and the apposition Republican Party on foreign policy and defence matters in an hour's meeting at the White House last night. The Presidential press secretary, Mr Pierre Salinger, said that the White House meeting last night dealt exclusively with foreign policy and defence matters. The Secretary of State (Mr Rusk), the Secretary of Defence (Mr McNamara), and the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (Mr John McCone), briefed the Congressmen. The President planned to hold a breakfast conference this morning with Democratic Party leaders to discuss his domestic legislative programme.