Evening star., 1951-08-01
Administering Foreign Aid

Though not Identical, the views expressed
by Senators Byrd and Taft plainly indicate that
there will be strong bipartisan opposition in
Congress to the Presidents proposal to give the
State Department the controlling voice in the
allocating and diSbursing operations of the Mu-
tual Security Program-a program envisioning
an outlay of $8.5 billion in foreign military and
economic aid during the current fiscal year.
The opposition taking shape against the pro-
poSal stems in part from the fact that Secretary
Acheson is unpopular with more than a few
members of Congress. But personality consid-
erationS seem to have only minor or incidental
bearing on the situation. The major reason why
men like Senators Byrd and Taft have come out
against the idea of placing the program under
the State Department is that they believe that
such move would be enthusiastically unSound
In their opinion-a persuasive one in many ways
the department should stick to the business
OF planning and executing policy in the sphere
OF foreign affairs In other words its relation
ship to military and economic aid should be
limited to key consultative role, and the oper-
atlng agency-or agencieS-in charge of the aid
should have an independent, not a subordinate
status.
This view is essentially the same as the one
that prevailed in 1948 when the Economic CO.
operation Administration was set up to promote
the recovery OF Europe. At that time despite
the pleas of General Marshall-then Secretary of
state-Congress fatty rejected the administra-
tion's request that the ECA be placed under the
direct control of the State Department What
Congress did, instead, was to establish the ECA
as an Independent operating agency The leg
lslat1on also endowed the agencyS head-Paul G.
Ho1man-With cabinet rank and the right to
appeal directly to the President in case OF
major disagreement with the Secretary of State
AS matters worked out of course Mr. Hoffman.
who remained definitely in charge of the ECA's
operations until his resignation some months
ago, got along very well with Mr.. Acheson in
smoothly co-ordinated relationship
The proposed Mutual Security Program, it is
true, is more complicated than the purely eco
nomic operations of the Marshall Plan under
the ECA, the great bulk of it being concen-
trated on military assistance in the form of
guns, tanks, planes etc. Nevertheless, there
seems no good reason why it should not be ad-
mlniStered in keeping with the principle adopted
by Congress in 1948. William c. Foster, Mr.. Hoff-
mans successor, apparently tavors the set-up
sought by the President but numerous special
studes-including those made for Mr.. Truman
by groups headed by Gordon Gray and Nelson
Rockefeller-have strongly advocated that our
foreign aid be handled apart from, though nat
urally In consultation with, the State Depart
ment, preferably by single independent agency
In view of the nature of the Mutual Sc
curity Program-its mixed economic and military
character-Congress may consider dividing the
aid operations between a couple of agencies
In any case, as an administrative matter, the
idea Of giving the State Department the decisive
voice has been defeated so emphatically in the
past that it seems to have little chance of being
adopted now. AS thus far presented, the argu-
ments for it have carried less weight than the
ones against