Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1956-07-19
Senators Split
Over Report on
Trade Curbs
By the Associated Press


The Senate Investigations Sub
committee has split sharply on
what its stormy inquiries into
free world trade with Russia
showed.
Its four Democratic members
and Senator Mccarthy, Republi-
can of Wisconsin, in a report tc
the Senate yesterday called
White House aide Harold E,
Stassen IAN arrogant, evasive
and uncandid witness" in the
hearings, and accused the Eli
Isenhower administration of fall
ing to fight as hard as it could
Ito choke of this East West
trade. Mr.. StaSSen, former
foreign aid chief. is now Presi-
dent Eisenhower's chief adviser
on disarmament problems.
Senators Mundt, Republican
of South Dakota, and Bender
Republican Of Ohio, fired back
a minority report calling the
majority findings unfair" and
distorted. They contended the
administration merits praise,
not criticism. United States eff
forts to hold down the trade,
these two said, ARE not en-
HANGED by partisan political at
tackS."
Signing the majority report
were Chairman Mcclellan,
Democrat of Arkansas, and
Senators Jackson. Democrat of
Washington, Symington, Demo-
crat of Missouri, and Erwin,
Democrat of North Carolina,
along with Senator Mccarthy,
who has been at odds with the
White House for many months.
The reports are bound to have
repercussions in the Senate's
Forthcoming debate on foreign
aid.
In the investigation the SUBJ
committee explored a 1854 in
ternational agreement reached
in Paris under which Western
allies relaxed curbS on the sale
ito Russia of about 200 items
which had been embargoed or
otherwise controlled as strategic
for wartime use.
Mr.. StaSSen, Secretary of
Commerce Weeks and other adj
ministration witnesses testified
in the hearing that this coun-
try agreed only reluctantly to
the relaxations, at the inSistence
of the allies. They said the al
tentative would have been virtu-
al collapse of the whole system
of embargos which still remains
in effect.
The majority report said that
Mr.. StaSSen, who had an i'm
portant role in the negotiations,
''miSled the Congress and the
American people" about the
scope and effects of the Paris
agreement until the hearings
brought out many Of the de-
tails
Law Violation Charged
1t also charged that the adj
ministration had violated the
spirit. if not the letter" of the
Battle Act, a law which provides
machinery for cutting of United
States foreign aid to allies which
sell strategic materials to the
Reds. 1t said the administra-
ton "disregarded the clear in
tent of Congress" and never once
enforced this law.
"At no time Tin 1854 negotia-
tions) did the executive branch
of our Government seriously use
the Battle Act as a lever for per-
suading foreign nations to OBJ
serve the then existing strategic
trade embargo" the majority re-
port said.
The report said also that the
administration had arbitrarily
refused to let the subcommittee
see some documents concerning
the Paris negotiations, or to ex-
anime others except under
pledge to keep them secret.
Senators Bender and Mundt
said public disclosure of this in
formation would have told the
Communists too much about
United States defense secrets.
They said this Government also
had pledged to keep secret some
details of the agreement, and
could not break this pledge to
So; ~ Ill, o1Iiac