CONGRESSIONAL RECORD - SENATE

American way of life. This is what we

hold out as a goal before many Americans. I think he is to be commended

for it.

But I say that experience has shown

that Mr. Henry Luce, the husband of the

nominee, has evidenced consistently, and

almost from month to month, the same

lack of objectivity and the same lack of

judgment which I fear are characteristic

of the nominee.

I will not gild the lily. We know that

Time magazine started as a weekly news

magazine. Many years ago it was converted into a journal of plutocratic

opinion, and as such it distorts the facts

of American life week by week and

month by month, in support of policiesno doubt honestly held by its publisherwhich, in my judgment are detrimental

to the best interests of the United States,

policies which came very close, no more

than a month ago, to getting us into

what might well have turned into a revolution in Bolivia, or perhaps a war. Our

diplomacy was held up to scorn over a

large area of Latin America. Why?

Because of the desire to make a "slick

chick" wisecrack in a widely read magazine published in Spanish throughout

Latin America, and repeated in the

English edition.

We know what happened to the China

policy which Mr. Luce advocated. At the

time there were those who thought that

was an indication of lack of objectivity

and lack of judgment. I hope we are

not to have a repetition in Brazil of the

situation which occurred in Bolivia, under a Latin American policy which would

carry with it equally disastrous results.

On the 19th of March of this year I

had occasion, as shown on page 4588 of

the CONGRESSIONAL RECORD, to insert in

the RECORD an article by a very able reporter on the Providence Journal-Bulletin. This article was an effort to

analyze Time magazine in an article

which was subsequently printed in the

New Republic. I invite the attention of

my colleagues to the excerpts from that

article which appear upon that page in

the RECORD. I read the concluding paragraph, which is a quotation from the

late William Allen White:

I think on the whole, sooner or later, the

American people do get the truth. But they

often get it when it is cold potatoes and does

them no good.

I say it with deep regret, but I do

not believe that the affiliations of Mrs.

Luce and the attitude of mind of her

husband-again, no doubt honestly held,

because he thinks that is the way to do

things-are very helpful to the foreign

policy of the United States. Therefore

I am reluctantly compelled to vote

against confirmation of the nomination

of Mrs. Clare Boothe Luce to be our Ambassador to Brazil, on the ground

that the record shows that she does not

have the necessary experience, objectivity, or judgment, and that her relationship with the Luce newspaper empire is,

in my judgment, likely, if not certain,

to hurt the status of the United States

in the country to which she seeks accreditation.

LEGISLATIVE SESSION

Mr. MANSFIELD. Mr. President, so

lonv as there will be no more speeches

on the nomination of Mrs. Luce today, I

move that the Senate resume the consideration of legislative business.

The motion was agreed to; and the

Senate resumed the consideration of

legislative business.

SECOND SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS, 1959

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The

Chair lays before the Senate the unfinished business, which will be stated by

title.

The LEGISLATIVE CLERK. A bill (H.R.

5916) making supplemental appropriations for the fiscal year ending June 30,

1959, and for other purposes.

MODIFICATION OF REORGANIZATION PLANS NO. II OF 1939, AND

NO. 2 OF 1953-VETO MESSAGE

(S. DOC. NO. 25)

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. CANNON in the chair) laid before the Senate

the following message from the President of the the United States, which was

read, and, with the accompanying bill,

was ordered to lie on the table and to be

printed:

To the Senate of the United States:

I return herewith, without my approval, S. 144, "An act to modify Reorganization Plan No. II of 1939 and Reorganization Plan No. 2 of 1953."

The bill provides that, in the approval

and disapproval of loans, the Administrator of the Rural Electrification Administration (REA) shall not be subject

to the supervision, direction or other

control of the Secretary of Agriculture.

In all other respects the functions and

activities of the REA would be exercised

within the Department of Agriculture

under the general direction and supervision of the Secretary.

Were S. 144 to become law it would

mark a major retreat from sound administrative policy and practice. Twenty

years ago the REA, then an independent

agency, was by reorganization plan

placed within the Department of Agriculture and under the general direction

and supervision of the Secretary. The

President, in his message transmitting

Reorganization Plan No. II of 1939, said

that the proposed reorganization was

for the "sole purpose of improving the

administrative management of the executive branch."

That action of 20 years ago accords

entirely with the later finding of the

first Commission on Organization of the

Executive Branch that:

There must be a clear line of authority

reaching down through every step of the

organization and no subordinate should have

authority independent of that of his superior.

Because S. 144 violates this sound

injunction I am compelled to disapprove

it.

Moreover, there Is nothing in the recent history of the REA which affords

any basis for concluding that the best interest of the agency or the public would

be served by removing the Administrator's loan-making authority from the

general direction and supervision of the

Secretary of Agriculture.

The REA since its inception has

moved steadily in the accomplishment

of its mission. When the agency was

established, only a small percentage of

the Nation's farms had central station

electric service. Today 96 percent of

our farmers have such service and about

one-half the increase has been provided

by REA financed facilities.

In the past 6 years the REA-financed

systems have made their greatest

progress. Loans of more than a billion

dollars have been made in this period,

nearly half as much as was loaned by

the agency in the previous 171/2 years of

its existence. Power sales have more than

doubled since 1952, loan delinquencies

have been reduced to the vanishing point

and the net worth of electric borrowers

has more than tripled. Plant investment

for these systems has more than doubled

in the past decade. The REA telephone

loan program, authorized in 1949, has

resulted in loan approvals which now

total approximately $500 million and

modern dial telephone service is rapidly

being extended to the Nation's rural

areas.

The REA has been working well and

progressing efficiently under the existing administrative arrangements. The

change In those arrangements proposed

by S. 144 would be contrary to the public interest. DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER.

THE WHITE HOUSE, April 27, 1959.

Mr. HUMPHREY. Mr. President, a

copy of the message of the President was

made available earlier today to Members of the Senate. Now we have heard

read to the Senate the veto message

relating to Senate bill 144.

I say most respectfully that the message does not get to the heart of the

proposed legislation, The proposed legislation did not deal with the number of

loans that had been made or the amount

of the loans, or the purposes for which

the loans had been made. The bill was

directed toward one thing, and only one

thing, namely, the possibility of political

interference in the granting of loans by

the Rural Electrification Administration

through the Secretary of Agriculture.

The legislation was directed toward the

commitment, which had been given by

the Secretary of Agriculture to the Senate Committee on Government Operations, at the time the Reorganization

Plan of 1953 went into effect, that if any

changes were to be made in the administrative structure of REA and its relationship to the Department of Agriculture, the appropriate committees of Congress would be notified prior to those

changes being made.

Those changes were made. The committees were not notified. The promise

and the assurance of the Secretary of

Agriculture were not fulfilled, and the

fears of many Members of the Senate,

expressed at the time of the adoption

'6816 April 27