PRESIDENT TRUMAN’S REQUEST TO CONGRESS HOUSE COMMITTEE APPROVES U.S. ARMS AID TO WEST EUROPE

Greymouth Evening Star, 17 August 1949, Page 6

PRESIDENT TRUMAN’S REQUEST TO CONGRESS HOUSE COMMITTEE APPROVES U.S. ARMS AID TO WEST EUROPE

WASHINGTON, August 15.—-The Foreign Affairs Committee of the United States House of Representatives today approved the full l,160 s 990;000 dollars sought by President Truman for arms aid to Western European members of the North Atlantic Treaty. The committee, however, split, the authorisation into cash and contract authority. The committee refused to adopt any proposal for arms aid to China. - ■ ‘

Mr Truman had requested the entire authorisation in cash, but the committee decided on the following allocation: —498,130,000 dollars in cash to be used up to March 31, and 157,710,000 dollars in cash to be used between March 31 and June 30; 428,100,000 dollars in contract authorisation to March 31, and 77,050,000 dollars in contract authorisation from March 31 to June 30.

The committee stipulated that the President, certify to Congress that a unified Allied command had been, established under the provisions of the North Atlantic Pact before any contract authority was exercised. An amendment by Mr John Lodge (Republican) to approve 200,000,000 dollars in arms aid for non-Commun-ist China was defeated. The committee, however, adopted another amendment expressing the hope that with United States -co-operation the free peoples of the Far East would organise a pact similar to the Atlantic Pact.

The committee has yet to decide on the extent of military -assistance for Greece, Turkey, Persia, Korea, and the Philippines, which Mr Truman

mentioned in his 1,450,000,000-dollar foreign arms aid bill. Senator Arthur Vandenberg and Senator John Foster Dulles said today that they would move in the Senate that the fund for Atlantic Pact nations be limited to 1,000,000,000 dollars, instead of the 1,160,990,000 dollars approved by the House Foreign Affairs Committee. They said that, among other things, an item of .155,000,000 dollars for the encouragement of munitions manufacture by Western European nations should not be adopted for the time being.