Слике страница
PDF
ePub

consequence compared to similar successful subversions in the rest of Latin America.

It is estimated that the extraordinary costs of the United States during the Cuban missile crisis amounted to $200 million, and we are told that Russia is pouring $1 million a day into the small country of Cuba. In fact, Communists in Latin America are now pointing out with glee that, taking into consideration the House cuts on the Alliance, we are making no more available to all Latin America through our loans than Khrushchev is making available to Cuba.

We will shortly be faced with the consideration of the foreign aid authorization bill, in which is contained the authorization for funds for the Alliance for Progress and for the Social Progress Trust Fund. Therefore, the following words from Vision magazine, in speaking of the recent cut to the Alliance for Progress program by the House, should be of interest:

The program does not deserve such treatment. Slow and fumbling in getting off the ground, it is now beginning to show achievements. Almost every Latin American state has already or is in the process of overhauling its tax structure. Land reforms are moving ahead. Roads, schools, hospitals, sewage nets are being built. Small businessmen are receiving alliance loans for expansion. the same time, other fortuitous signs of Latin American advancement are appearing the regional economic integration movements and the slowly rising prices of major commodities.

At

Of course there is disappointment and grumbling-over the slowness of reform on the one hand, and the slowness of money on the other-but on the balance it is widely accepted that the program is providing a real stimulus to progress. The United States must remember that the $1 billion a year promised by Washington is not the Alliance for Progress, but only a small part of it. Its chief importance is to provide a catalyst which will set off a much larger and purely Latin American reaction. By trimming its commitment, Washington at a very minimum will do irreparable harm to a burgeoning Alliance spirit that only now is beginning to take hold.

The call on Alliance funds will be greater in the coming year than ever before. Peru and Argentina will be back in the program with their return to democratic rule. Major

commitments to Chile and Colombia must be continued. If the dust settles in Brazil, new projects will rise again there. After setting rigidly high standards for development aid, Washington is hardly in a position to default once its demands have been met.

We have already seen indications from

PERSONAL STATEMENT BY

SENATOR MORSE

Mr. MORSE. Mr. President, I understand that while I was out of the Chamber this afternoon, presiding as chairman of the Senate conferees on the higher education bill, the Senator from Illinois [Mr. DIRKSEN] discussed the motion of the senior Senator from Oregon to recommit the foreign aid bill to committee and, in the opinion of colleagues, paid his disrespects in sarcasm and ridicule to the senior Senator from Oregon.

I judge from what I have heard that the speech of the Senator from Illinois shows that he and I have nothing in

common. I am glad, if that is true, that it does, because I would never want to be that common. I am delighted to know that I no longer belong to a political party so bankrupt in leadership that it is dependent upon the alleged leadership of the Senator from Illinois.

I understand that the speech was characterized by ill manners and bad taste.

But I am accustomed to that from the
Senator from Illinois.

I am very proud of the fact that I have never won his good will; because if I did, I would have to engage in some very long introspection. I am proud of the fact that there are some people who obviously are not enthusiastic friends of the Sena

tor from Oregon. I am perfectly willing to leave the record as it is.

I am glad that none of my Democratic colleagues sought to answer him, although some said they thought they should, but decided they should not unless I were present. I take this as one of the normal courses of events that sometimes take place in the Senate, when Senators are so lacking in their facts that they have to resort to ridicule, personal sarcasm, and personal abuse as a substitute for logic, reason, and evidence.

Some Senators thought it was too bad that we could not have recorded in the RECORD the well-known inflections of the voices of the Senator from Montana and the Senator from Illinois; but I have requested that the RECORD remain unchanged, not edited-which is the right changed, not edited-which is the right of the Senate. So let the RECORD now show that I have formally notified the Official Reporters that the RECORD of the speech of the Senator from Illinois is to remain unedited.

Mr. President, I have another brief comment to make: It would appear that a part of the burden of the arguments and public announcements of the mathe

Latin America of the trauma felt there by jority leader [Mr. MANSFIELD],

our friends due to the recent cuts, and we have seen examples of the gloating by the Castro and Communist press over this cut, coming, as Mr. Moscoso has said, at the very time that Latin American governments are moving ahead and when they have placed themselves way out on thin political limbs.

We have but one road to follow, the road of support to the Alliance for Progress. Our failure to do so will result in consequences to our own national interest-and to the hopes of the Latin Americans themselves, for a hemisphere of countries, representative of their people, and responsive to the social and economic needs of the populace, which are too horrible to consider. We certainly cannot expect to be able to sit fatuously on our own front porch while our backyard is aflame.

chairman of the committee [Mr. FULBRIGHT], and the majority whip, the Senator from Minnesota [Mr. HUMPHREY] dealing with the position which those of us who are opposed to this bill have taken is, so it is reported, to charge that we are picking out instances of waste and mismanagement that always are bound to crop up in a program such as the foreign aid program, and that we are not dealing with the basic issues involved.

Mr. President, nothing could be more incorrect. On the contrary, we have not "nit-picked" at specific projects or items. What we have been doing, and what we will continue to do for some days, before the Senate votes on the Mansfield

Dirksen amendments, is to offer amendments to the committee amendment and to the Mansfield-Dirksen amendments. Thus we will put Senators in a position

where they cannot say to their constitdid not know." They may put themuents, when they return home, "But we selves in a position where they will have

to say, "We did not listen" or "we did not

read," because it is obvious that many of make the record; and it is obvious that their answer, on the basis of the record they make here-not on the basis of the

record we make-will have to be just

that.

specific projects but we have shown the So I say we have not "nit-picked" at history of the AID in many places, and we have shown that it has not accom

plished its purpose.

For example, Mr. President, consider the $300 million a year, for 10 years, that Turkey has received under the AID proshe was in 1947. If any persons are lagram; yet today Turkey is worse off than boring under the illusion that Turkey has a constitutional, democratic form of government, they could not be more mistaken.

Or consider the $3.5 billion which Pakistan has received under the AID program. We have pointed out that aid

in that amount to Pakistan cannot be justified. Today we find Pakistan playing "footsie" with the Red Chinese and entering into negotiated agreements with them. We point out that, as a matter of

policy, that cannot be justified to the

taxpayers of the United States.

We have been discussing the basic policy questions involved in the foreign aid bill; and we shall give all Senators an opportunity to vote on the question of whether they want billions of dollars of the funds of the taxpayers of the United States to continue to be sent to Pakistan, because we are going to move that that item be cut.

Or let Senators consider the $5.5 billion which Korea has received under our AID program, although South Korea would not last for more than a matter of days if it were not for the presence of our Armed Forces there. We point out that it is cheaper to put on the frontline a South Korean soldier or a Pakistan soldier or a Turkish soldier, rather than an American soldier; but the program now being operated makes no sense, because both American troops and the troops of the other countries are used; and not only are we paying the entire bill for the maintenance of foreign armies, but we are also placing in those countries-in uniform-American soldiers, sailors, and airmen; and they are the ones who provide protection to these countries-not the foreign aid program, at all.

Furthermore, let us not forget that the aid program does not include the cost of maintaining our forces abroad or the cost of a good many other things which add to these huge expenditures. Next week, we shall give a detailed accounting of the facts.

Let Senators also consider the sum, close to $1 billion, which Indonesia receives under the U.S. foreign aid pro

gram. Can any Senator state exactly where Indonesia stands today among the nations of the world, or show which side she is on?

Or let Senators consider the $4,500 million which Taiwan has received under our foreign aid program. The United States has maintained a great social security program for Chiang Kai-shek's soldiers, and the United States pays the salaries of more generals in Chiang Kaishek's army than the total number of generals in the entire U.S. Military Establishment. Is it any wonder that the American people are fed up with such a

program.

Of course the proponents of the program want to rush this bill through the Senate, so that the facts, such as those I am bringing out, cannot be known by the American people. But the proponents will not be successful in that attempt; and the Senator from Illinois can weep his forensic tears until his shirt front is as wet as he may want it to be, but he will not shake me from my determination to have full debate in the Senate on this bill.

This afternoon I gave the Senate an opportunity to make use of the most proper forum for procedure in connection with this bill at this time; namely, to permit the Foreign Relations Committee to hear, behind the doors of the committee room, representatives of the administration. However, my motion was defeated. Nevertheless, Mr. President, the vote on my motion did not make

the proponents of the bill at all happy, because now they know that many Senators will not join them in their opposition

to the Senator from Florida [Mr. HOL

LAND] to me, and to other Senators who

have amendments to offer.

The Senator from Illinois made sport of the fact that I called the Mansfield amendments "powerhouse amendments"-which, in my judgment, they are, for they are designed, in my judgment, to seek, parliamentarywise, to prevent an onslaught on this bill by means of amendment after amendment; and their purpose as the Presiding officer has already pointed out-is to place the opponents of the bill in a position

where, if we permitted the MansfieldDirksen amendments to be adopted pefore we first resorted to all the amend

ments which we wish to offer, we would find ourselves in a parliamentary position in which certain figures in the Mansfield-Dirksen amendments could not be changed, once those amendments were adopted. Mr. President, I have not served here for 19 years only to walk into that trap, even though it is laid by the majority leader and the minority leader. There is no hurry about the bill. Any time they want to have it laid aside, they can succeed in having that done. Or if they want to have the Senate take up, one at a time, the various amendments to this bill, they will have my coopera

tion.

But I shall continue to be impervious to insults. I shall be sad if I offend any Senator who finds himself inconvenienced because he cannot go on a safari to Paris or Malaya, or on some other junket. But I have the old-fashioned

idea that the place for U.S. Senators to be is in the U.S. Senate, in Washington, D.C., when a bill involving-to the degree this bill does the security and the future of the United States is under debate. I am sorry if some Senators do not like that; but let them tell their constituents that they do not like it, because it is my judgment that the course of action which is being attempted by some Senators will be repudiated-as I said the other day-in the great citadel of freedom, the voting booth, when the voters of the United States have an opportunity to pass judgment on the foreign aid bill and their support of it.

Mr. President, I should like to ask my friend, the Senator from Ohio [Mr. YOUNG], if he would do me a great favor? I am sure I can count on him to do me a great favor, although I apologize because I cannot stay and hear his speech. However, I shall read it. I have an engagement that I must keep. The majority leader, assuming that the Senator from South Carolina [Mr. JOHNSTON] would be the last speaker, told me to move to recess the Senate until next Monday noon at 12 o'clock. He apparently did not know that the Senator from Ohio intended to speak. I wonder if I may plead with my friend from Ohio to take over that chore of mine and, when he finishes, move to recess until Monday at 12 o'clock.

Mr. YOUNG of Ohio. The distin

guished Senator from Oregon need never plead with me. In fact, he need never plead with anyone. I find myself on his side in many things. I am flattered by his kind reference to me.

Mr. MORSE. I, myself had planned to deliver a speech, but a conference on higher education made it impossible for

me to do so.

I am delighted that the House conI should like very quickly to report that ferees and the Senate conferees reached tion bill. I shall make a report on that an agreement today on the higher educa

subject on Monday.

already gone to the press gallery. I wish My speech on the foreign aid bill had to explain to the members of the press gallery that I shall deliver that speech

on Monday.

I thank my friend from Ohio very much.

in the course of the debate on foreign Mr. YOUNG of Ohio. Mr. President, assistance, I find myself alined with those of my colleagues who seek to cut those of my colleagues who seek to cut unnecessary spending from this program. unnecessary spending from this program.

As I have said before, and I repeat now, I am thankful that the present administration is honest with the American people and terms our foreign aid program "foreign assistance." While I supported all of the foreign assistance requests of President Eisenhower during the final 2 years of his administration, I alway felt that it was not honest to term foreign aid "mutual security," as was the case during that administration.

SHELTER BUILDING BOONDOGGLE

Mr. YOUNG of Ohio. Mr. President, at this time I desire to speak out against

another series of expenditures that have been without justification.

A limited nuclear test ban treaty ratified by the Senate last month is of great significance not only because it ends the deadly pollution of the atmosphere, but more important for its symbolism as a possible first step toward permanent peace. For more than a month millions of words were uttered by witnesses and by Senators in the historic debate on ratification.

I consider the test ban treaty in the best interests of our country. I was very glad indeed to speak out for it on a number of occasions, and I am glad that my vote is recorded in favor of ratification of the treaty.

It is incongruous that as the Senate debated this treaty, which we hope may be a step toward permanent peace, the House of Representatives at the same time authorized $190 million for a fallout shelter program, obviously on the assumption that there will be no peace. The limited test ban treaty stands on the judgment that new weapons development would not significantly add to the deterrent power of our present nuclear arsenal. The administration rejected Dr. Edward Teller's advice on the treaty, but is enthusiastically following his advice in proposing to spend almost $200 million next year alone on the beginning of a fallout shelter building spree that could become the greatest boondoggle in American history.

It was indeed reassuring to see "sweet

reason" return to the other body when the House Appropriations Committee subsequently refused to approve one cent for this proposal.

awaiting action in the Senate Committee The authorization measure is presently on Armed Services. It is my fervent hope that a convenient pigeonhole will be found for it, and as a member of that great committee I shall do my utmost to see to it that this bill remains in com

mittee.

This $190 million authorization would be only the first step in a 5-year prodefense bureaucrats say will cost a total gram of shelter building that the civil of $2.1 billion. It would provide Federal

grants of up to $2.50 a square foot for the construction of shelters in State and municipal buildings, schools, hospitals, throughout the land. and welfare institutions in communities

I am reminded of a poem which recently appeared in a national magazine and read something like this:

Oh, what a rumpus in the Nation On Federal aid to education But yet there's money found To bury children underground. We would do far better to enact legislation to provide additional classrooms for children of this Nation than to spend money for useless fallout shelters in the basements of antiquated school buildings. It would be ironic if this Congress passes a subsidy for school construction underground while refusing assistance for wholesale school programs above ground. What must we think of our children to do such a thing?

Mr. President, over the past 12 years over $1,300 million of taxpayers

money has been foolishly wasted on silly civil defense schemes. Today, 18 years after Hiroshima, the United States has no civil defense worthy of the name. Most of what there is consists of absurd plans on paper and the rest is confusion. Simple arithmetic proves that any shelter program large enough to be meaningful-if such a thing is possible-will cost untold billions of dollars. However, civil defense officials follow the bureaucratic rule of keeping first estimates low enough to induce Congress into authorizing some colossal lunacy knowing they can always get more once a program is born.

Mr. President, those favoring a massive fallout shelter building program have estimated that it will cost anywhere from $20 billion to $200 billion. In their recent book "Strategy for Survival," Thomas L. Morton, dean of the College of Engineers of the University of Arizona, and Donald C. Latham, an electronics researcher, concluded that a national community shelter program would cost in excess of $37 billion. Herman Kahn, one of the foremost proponents of fallout shelters, has estimated that a reasonable program might involve a gradual buildup from about $1 billion annually to somewhere in the neighborhood of $5 billion annually. A recent estimate by Prof. John Ullman, chairman of the Department of Management at Hofstra College, would place the cost as high as $302 billion. Regardless of which of the expert opinions is cited, the price tag would be astronomical.

terest. During each crisis the get-richquick shelter salesmen appear. As soon as the crisis abates and public interest fades completely, they crawl back under fades completely, they crawl back under the rocks from whence they came, or take up some other means of separating take up some other means of separating worthy people from their money.

Only recently the city of Portland, Oreg., voted to abolish its civil defense program which was costing $110,000 of local funds annually. The Los Angeles City Council slashed $209,000 from the civil defense budget request, reducing it to $30,000. The staff was reduced from 26 to 3. Officials of the city of Baltimore, Md., are considering taking similar action. The city comptroller has called for the outright elimination of the city's for the outright elimination of the city's civil defense organization. Last weekend, Mayor Theodore McKeldin stated he would drastically reduce the budget he would drastically reduce the budget request for civil defense purposes. Communities throughout the Nation are awakening to the fact that thousands of awakening to the fact that thousands of dollars of taxpayers' money has been spent on foolish programs with no tangible results except for the fact that in many instances livelihoods were provided for ex-politicians and city hall parasites. They are the types in my State asites. They are the types in my State of Ohio and elsewhere who for the most of Ohio and elsewhere who for the most part are handling civil defense workpolitical hacks who have been defeated for office by the people and then seek soft public jobs and feed at the public soft public jobs and feed at the public trough, drawing high salaries and waiting for that bomb to fall while doing nothing constructive.

Mr. President, there is no shelter building program in Great Britain, France, or in any of the major Western powers. Reliable observers in the Soviet Union report that there is no fallout shelter program in all of Russia.

Henry Shapiro, dean of the American correspondents in Moscow, wrote:

No foreigner here has seen any civil defense shelters. The average citizen is unaware of the existence of shelters.

Even then, there is no guarantee that a shelter program will be at all effective. With extensive advances being made in rocket and nuclear technology, it would probably be obsolete before completion. One of the scientists now working on advanced weapons technology is reported to have said: "You ain't seen nothing yet," compared with what is coming into sight in the way of new weapons. Edward McDermott, Director of the Office of Emergency Planning was recently took a similar position when he stated: quoted as having said that most nuclear scientists now agree any underground facilities can be "dug out" if an enemy is willing to invest enough in the job, while others believe some protection is possible if one goes down far enough. He pointed out it would be "economically impractical" to dig such a shelter and subsequent nuclear advances might wipe

out the investment once made.

There is also the possibility of more deadly types of warfare for which shelters offer no protection whatever-chemical and biological warfare. Any nation that would unleash a thermonuclear war would probably not hesitate to use other methods equally as terrifying and devastating.

Is the Congress prepared to embark on such a vast gamble and to spend perhaps $200 billion of taxpayers' money? Let us have no illusions. In reality, this is what the civil defense planners are asking us to do.

Anyone who has taken the trouble to look into the matter is aware of the fact that most building owners have ignored or refused requests to provide shelters, and that ordinary citizens have lost in

Preston Grover of the Associated Press

Attachés from embassies who have looked 'round the country for sign of shelters have found nothing. Foreigners live in many of the newest buildings put up in Moscow, and they have no bomb shelters.

In 1961, the New York Times published a report from Moscow by Harrison Salisbury which stated:

About 12,000 miles of travel in the Soviet Union by this correspondent in the last 4 weeks failed to turn up evidence of a single Soviet bomb shelter.

Mr. Salisbury agreeing with Mr. Grover of the Associated Press said:

Diplomats, foreign military attachés, and correspondents who have traveled widely in the Soviet Union report that there is no visible evidence of a widespread shelter program.

In the Soviet Union, civilians are being taught first aid procedures; they are being taught about street fighting and how to resist invasion from basement to basement and from street to street. There is no construction whatsoever of shelters in the ground for people to crawl into and cower in, like moles in holes waiting for the conquering paratroopers to

come. That is what some of the civil defense bureaucrats advocate in this country. country. Yet, generals of our Armed Forces, Gen. Curtis LeMay and others, have testified that they would prefer, in the first place, to spend the money for offensive weapons rather than to dig useless holes in the ground.

Mr. President, it is interesting to note that through the uncertain years while this Nation and the Soviet Union were building up their nuclear capacities, no real interest could be stirred up among the general public or in the Congress for any form of civil defense. During that time it is true that over $1 billion was appropriated in piecemeal fashion but not for any really serious or effective plan of action. Actually, we were soothing our consciences "just in case" a nuclear war would come. Year after year we appropriated $75 or $100 or $80 million for civil defense purposes, always "just in case." Neither the Eisenhower administration nor the Kennedy administration nor the Congress over the past 12 years has really faced up to this issue. It was always easier to pretend that something was being done. It assuaged the fear of a possible future guilty conscience.

It is only human to grasp at straws when faced by an overwhelmingly difficult situation, and in appropriating these funds which gradually began to total a staggering sum; this is what was done. No one in his heart really believed that the civil defense fishnet would be of any protection in a surging sea of nuclear destruction. These appropriations were psychological pablum to soothe the anxieties and fears of a worried citizenry that wanted a solution to an insoluble problem-civil defense in the atomic age. In the city of Columbus, Ohio, for example, more than $600,000 was spent on special regulation of traffic lights on the assumption that in a time of emergency all traffic lights in that city would be green to enable people to flee in one direction. As if in a moment of terror during a nuclear attack people would be looking at traffic lights or would be guided by them. If they did that, there would be the greatest traffic jam known to history.

Now that there has been a lessening of tension, we are asked to approve a bill for the spending of an additional tremendous amount of taxpayers' money for protection against past dangers and to again soothe our consciences just in

case.

Mr. President, our best and probably only civil defense in this nuclear age is a firm stand against aggression. This was evidenced a year ago last October when President Kennedy took firm, determined, resolute, and unyielding action against Khrushchev, and Khrushchev turned tail and withdrew his offensive missiles and airplanes from Cuba.

There is no workable defense against the hydrogen bomb except not to drop it in the first place. As Gen. Douglas McArthur has stated:

War has become a Frankenstein to destroy both sides. No longer does it possess the chance of the winner of the duel. It contains, rather, the germs of double suicide.

and the free world. It means that we

Or, as Walter Lippmann put it: There is no protection against nuclear war are gaining in our contest with the Comexcept to prevent it.

Certainly, holes in the ground or socalled fallout shelters are no deterrent to any possible aggressor. They in no way work to prevent war.

Mr. President, I fervently hope that the Senate will reject the bill passed by the other body authorizing $190 million for a beginning of a shelter building program. There are many more worthwhile places where taxpayers' money can be put to good use. When our country has so many unmet needs, when more than half the world is ill clothed, ill housed, and ill fed, is it appropriate to devote billions of dollars to burrow underground? Is it justifiable to spend millions to stock shelters with food when so many are hungry?

Mr. President, I again urge officials of this administration to review carefully present civil defense policy so that we in the Congress may be aware of the ultimate costs and so we may know where we are going in this area. I hope that the present proposal calling for Federal aid to States and communities to supply public buildings with shelters is going to receive a complete review in the Senate Armed Services Committee. Until that is done, not 1 cent more should be appropriated on a wasteful, directionless program that has already cost taxpayers well over $1 billion and threatens to cost hundreds of billions more. I yield the floor.

AMENDMENT OF FOREIGN ASSISTANCE ACT OF 1961

The Senate resumed the consideration of the bill (H.R. 7885) to amend further the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, as amended, and for other purposes.

Mr. HUMPHREY. Mr. President, first I thank the Senator from Illinois [Mr. DOUGLAS] for his consideration and kindness in permitting me to speak at this time, because he has been waiting to make a speech. I wanted to make a statement in reference to one of the amendments before the Senate on the foreign aid bill; namely, the amendment that was offered to reduce the bill by $385 million.

Mr. President, we have recently seen evidence of a massive failure on the part of the Soviet Union-the failure of the Soviet agriculture system to provide sufficient food to feed the Russian people. The Communists are clearly having basic economic difficulties. Their system simply is not working efficiently. This not only may provide opportunities for us to make better use of our great economic system; it also means that the Communists do not have the economic power necessary to implement their political objectives. Among other things, they are having trouble with their foreign aid program.

While we should not minimize the threat of Communist subversion, it is quite clear that the Communists, at least at the present time, do not have the means necessary for the foreign aid program they have been conducting in recent years. This is a development of great significance for the United States

munists on the economic front, and it provides the opening for moving into the vacuum created by Communist withdrawal.

It is paradoxical, at the very time we appear to be winning and the Communists appear to be pulling back, that we should also seem to have so many doubts about ourselves and our own foreign aid Doubts have been created program. about whether the responsible officials of this Government really believe what they profess and what they say about the foreign aid program. At the beginning of this year, before the Clay Committee made its report, we were told that a $4.9 billion program was essential to the Nation's security and prestige in the world. After the Clay Committee report, we were told that a $4.5 billion program was the bare minimum necessary if the Nation's security is not to be impaired. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee, after months of study, hearings, and markups, recommended an authorization of $4.2 Now billion as the absolute minimum. we learn that a smaller authorization bill, $3.8 billion can be justified.

The citizens' committees for the foreign aid program have been permitted more or less to dissipate or evaporate, rather than have the kind of organizational assistance required for a better understanding of our foreign aid objec

tives.

It is no wonder that the people are confused. My office and others in this city have received calls from numerous groups and organizations who were planning to launch programs to arouse public support for the foreign aid program. Now is it any wonder that they are confused and perplexed? They ask: Are the They ask: Are the leaders of the executive and legislative branches willing to fight for the aid program which they repeatedly have claimed to be essential to our national security, or are they not? Is there any point in trying to arouse public support for the foreign aid program which the administration said was needed?

Mr. President, these are legitimate questions by citizens who are genuinely concerned. This is not the first time the aid program has been attacked-nor will it be the last.

It is the perennial whipping boy of anyone who has any sense of frustration on any subject, domestic or international.

But in view of the difficulties presently confronting the Soviet Union and the opportunity now available to us, it is most disturbing that we shrink from taking advantage of these opportunities.

Wars are not won by retreating when the enemy retreats, and the war which is being fought with all the tools in our foreign aid program is just as serious foreign aid program is just as serious and as important as any of the shooting wars we have ever fought.

In fact, the foreign aid program is designed to win the struggle in the world without a shooting war.

Now is not the time to retreat. Now is the time for launching an offensive in those areas of the world that are of greatest importance to the United States. Now is the time for mobilizing all the

resources at our command. Now is the time to get on with the job, rather than worrying about what others are doing, or dwelling on minor mistakes and shortcomings. Mistakes are bound to happen. Enough mistakes were made on D-day to convince any skeptic that the war was lost-if all he could see were the mistakes and the confusion. D-day was turned into a great victory for free men because we moved ahead without stopping or looking back.

As the Soviet Union cuts back on its commitment, we should move ahead. It should be noted that others are moving ahead to expand their influence, to take advantage of new opportunities. France is notable among them.

I may add, so is the Federal Republic of Germany.

The French Government is not cutting back its aid program. It is expanding it even though its per capita aid is already twice as large as that of the United States.

I do not share many of the aims of French foreign policy, nor the objectives which their aid program in some cases may be designed to achieve. But I am impressed with the French Government's decisiveness in formulating its foreign aid policy, and its resoluteness in implementing it. There is nothing random, disjointed, or haphazard about its policy. Although the French aid program is certainly not a model program, particularly in regard to the terms of the aid offered, it has one characteristic which we should note carefully. It is concentrated in selected areas considered to be of highest priority to France. It is not scattered over 80 or 100 countries. It has a consistent direction. The French Government knows what it wants to do with its aid program-and is doing it.

One of the major weaknesses of our aid program is that of attempting to do too much, and thereby it loses its sense of direction. What is often lacking is a clear set of priorities for the program and a strong resolution to implement these priorities.

This is sometimes evident among those in the executive branch and in the Congress who are declared friends of the foreign aid program. In their espousal of the foreign aid program, they must have a clear grasp of what is most important and what is less important, what is top priority, and what is of secondary importance.

This set of priorities must always be kept in mind. If it appears that the Congress will not approve of the administration's total program, then the established set of priorities will naturally be followed in distributing any cuts.

We have recently been advised in the Senate that the Foreign Relations Committee's recommendations must be reduced.

I have shared the view, after sensing the temperament of the Congress, that some agreement to reduce the committee's figures might be necessary in order for the bill to be approved in the Senate. But what concerns me most is the absence of any clearly established priorities in distributing the cuts that have been proposed.

Many parts of this foreign aid bill are important, but which part is most import? Which part has top priority?

I believe that the Alliance for Progress program has top priority. I accept the President's statement that Latin America is the most critical area in the world as far as U.S. foreign policy is concerned. I accept this and believe we should act upon it. The executive branch should act upon it. The leaders of Congress should act upon it, and yet we are informed that some believe the Alliance for Progress item recommended by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee can be cut by $125 million. We hear that this is one of the categories best able to sustain a cut. And today we hear further that some officials in the executive branch are most concerned, not about obtaining the full request for the Alliance for Progress, but about restoring a large part of the military aid program-most of which goes to southeast Asia.

Mr. President, I claim no superior knowledge about strategy for obtaining the best possible foreign aid bill this year. I am quite willing to follow the advice of others on this question in many respects. But I am certain on one thing: I know that a cut of $125 million from the Alliance for Progress weakens it.

I know that that cut does not carry out what was the President's judgment on the importance of the Latin America area in the struggle in which we are now engaged with world communism.

I know that this conflicts with the policy stated by the President of the United States.

Mr. President, this week there opened in São Paulo, Brazil, the annual meeting of the OAS Inter-American Economic and Social Council. At this meeting, which will be attended by most of the key Alliance officials in the hemisphere, the future of the Alliance for Progress will be discussed. Proposals to modify its structure to achieve greater Latin participation will be discussed at this meeting. At the end of next week, Under Secretary Averell Harriman will go to São Paulo to head the U.S. delegation to the OAS meeting at the ministerial level.

This proposed reduction puts Secretary Harriman in a most difficult position. The U.S. Government has been exhorting Latin American governments to do better in mobilizing their own resources, to exact the taxes and enact the reforms called for in the charter of Punta del Este. We have repeatedly pleaded with Latin government officials to live up to their commitments under the Alliance. And yet now we indicate that the United States is to go back on its commitments. Most of the major Latin American newspapers, including those most friendly to the United States, did not fail to note that the House figure approved for the entire Latin American continent was only slightly above the total Soviet aid to Cuba alone. Our commitments under the Alliance, as well as those of our Latin American neighbors, must be honored. Nothing is more harmful to our prestige, to our national image, and to our foreign policy interests than the appearance of reneging on

commitments made. The recent action of the House of Representatives in drasof the House of Representatives in drastically reducing the Alliance for Progress funds requested by the administration is interpreted in every Latin American country as precisely that.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee disagreed with the House action, and recognized the embarrassment this would cause the U.S. Government and restored the funds cut by the House. Now we are told that the Senate should follow the House's example and reverse the decision House's example and reverse the decision of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

I remind my colleagues that this is only the authorization. The appropriation is another matter. Everyone who tion is another matter. Everyone who has served in this body over the years knows that the appropriation figure usually is substantially less than the authorization figure.

This would mean that the Senate authorization figure for the Alliance would thorization figure for the Alliance would be $525 million. As everyone knows this figure could be reduced further by the House-Senate conference and reduced drastically by the House in the appropriations round. What we would likely have in the end is a figure approximating the $400 million which the Soviet Union now gives to one small country, Cuba. If the world's leading capitalist country cannot do any better than that, we do not have much of an argument with the Communists. Communists. Yet Latin America is the most critical area in the world, as we have been told by the leader of the greatest Nation on the face of the earth, the President of the United States.

What Mr. Harriman is likely to be asked in São Paulo, and quite rightly, what prompted us to go back on our commitment. When we committed our support to the Alliance at Punte del Este, we expressed support for a figure of $600 million per year for 4 years. The expectation, however, was that our aid would increase after the first year. Instead it is now proposed to be cut back from the $600 million level.

Mr. President, it is difficult to justify a cut of $125 million from the Alliance for Progress and add $125 million to the contingency fund when experience teaches that funds for this category have gone unused. Last year, out of $260 million appropriated for the contingency fund, $117 million went unspent.

Furthermore, if the President's contingency fund is increased by $125 million, we can rest assured that the little Alliance for Progress establishment will be pushed out of position in the grab for be pushed out of position in the grab for that money by more powerful forces in that money by more powerful forces in this country.

I repeat that I am not unaware of the necessity to make compromise to obtain an acceptable foreign aid bill this year. I can readily accept a cut in military assistance. It is long overdue. I can accept a modest cut even in the Development Loan Fund. However, if we

[blocks in formation]

What I insist upon is that these cuts must not fall on the highest priority program, the Alliance for Progress. I will continue to oppose any substantial cuts in this program.

I am not saying we must honor in full the administration's request for aid to 80 or 100 different countries. The sooner we cut that figure the better. The sooner we really learn to concentrate our aid program in selected high priority areas the better. We have been asking our allies to step up their aid program. But if we continue to have aid missions in 80 different countries where are our allies going to concentrate? And so I do not ask that we give the administration what it requests for 80 different countries.

I ask only that we provide what the Senate Foreign Relations Committee recommended as a prudent amount for the Alliance for Progress program in Latin America, the area having top priority under our foreign policy.

THE TAX BILL-THE NEED FOR TAX REFORM

GOOD FEATURES OF BILL

Mr. DOUGLAS. Mr. President, there are many good features in the present tax bill, H.R. 8363, with which we are dealing in the Finance Committee. Among these are first, the fact of tax reduction itself in order to stimulate demand, production and employment; second, the minimum standard deduction of $300 per taxpayer plus $100 for each family dependent; third, the shifting of the corporation tax collection period from the present delayed system to roughly the same basis as taxes are now collected from individuals; and fourth, the repeal of the 4-percent dividend credit against taxes actually owed; and certain other features as well.

I shall discuss these and other features of the bill in later brief discussions which I plan to make on the tax bill

during this session of Congress at times which will not interfere with discussion and action upon pending business. My comments come at the end of a long day's session, and certainly do not interfere with any pending business before the Senate.

MILLIONAIRES ESCAPE TAXATION

But today I rise to state the urgent need for tax reform and to protest its slow and quiet strangulation.

There are, in the record of the current hearings of the Finance Committee on the pending tax bill, some shocking figures of which every American ought to be aware. The Secretary of the Treasury has furnished figures showing that in 1959 there were 20 persons in this country with incomes-adjusted gross incomes-of more than $500,000 who paid not a penny in Federal income taxes in 1959.

There were 15 persons having incomes of more than $1 million who paid not a cent of taxes.

There were five persons having gross incomes of more than $5 million a year who did not pay a single cent in taxes.

« ПретходнаНастави »