U.S. HOUSE CUTS ARMS AID UNDER ATLANTIC PACT

Grey River Argus, 20 August 1949, Page 5

U.S. HOUSE CUTS ARMS AID UNDER ATLANTIC PACT

WASHINGTON, August 18, In a stunning defeat tor the Administration the House of Representatives conight confirmed an earlier vote cutting in half the Government’s 1,160,090 thousand dollars arms aid programme for the Atlantic Pact countries. The measure has to go before the Senate. By a vote of 209 to 151, the House adopted amendments by representative James Richards (Democrat, South Carolina) that the European funds be cut fifty per cent. The amendment, which earlier had been approved by a tentative vote of 172 to 137 by the House, sitting as a committee of the whole, included a provision that the remaining half of the money could be considered by Congress next year. Mr Richards anil those who supported him said the amendment would serve notice on the European nations that the arms help would end next June, unless they demonstrated their determination to pull together as a team for mutual defence. The House decision, and particularly the size of the opposition vote, against the passage of the complete European arms programme, came as a surprise to the Democratic leaders. A similar amendment had been defeated in the House Foreign Affairs Committee, which had approved the complete bill. The House rejected by 164 to 92 "ii amendment to authorise seventyfive millions for the anti-communist areas in the Far East. Some Democrats said the granting of such aid to Nationalist China at present would be tantamount to a declaration of war against, communist China.