Senate rejects military aid bill

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32978, 26 July 1972, Page 17

Senate rejects military aid bill

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter —Copyright) WASHINGTON, July 25.

America’s military aid programme to nearly 50 nations is in trouble after Administration supporters in the Senate suddenly turned against it to kill an unprecedented Vietnam troop withdrawal amendment.

“I would rather see ho bill than the bill in that form,” the Senate Republican leader, Senator Hugh Scott, told reporters after the SNZISII million military foreign aid bill was defeated last night in a surprise 48-42 vote. Senator Scott said that he was not asked by the Administration to work against the bill, but when he warned the Senate of a possible veto by President Nixon “I was expressing my own knowledge of the Administration’s thinking.”

The Nixon Administration strongly opposed the narrow-ly-passed amendment, which would have cut off funds for maintaining American forces in South Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia within four months provided Hanoi frees all American prisoners of war. The Administration is now faced with the task of patching together a foreign military aid bill all over again.

Senator Scott said that Administration supporters might try to use the bill the House of Representatives is expected to pass later this month or in August. Alternatively, the Administration is expected to try to pass a continuing resolution which would provide funds on the basis of last year’s legislation which did not contain such strong anti-war provision.

But the opposition to either course is likely to delay final enactment of the bill for weeks or months. This happened last year when the

Senate in October defeated a foreign aid bill for the first time in the programme’s quarter-century history.

The anti-war amendment approved by the Senate was the first either House of Congress had voted to invoke the Congressional powers on spending against the Vietnam war, and the “doves” in the Senate are not likely to give ground easily. Senator William Fulbright, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee which handles foreign aid legislation. told reporters that he would do nothing to bring out a new bill. He and several other opponents of the Vietnam war voted to defeat the bill last night because of their longstanding opposition to military aid.

The economic aid programme is not affected because last year Congress approved it on a two-year basis.