Foreign Aid Overhaul

Report Outline
New Review of the Foreign Aid Program
Forms and Purposes of Foreign Assistance
Debate Over Aid Policies and Programs
Recent Organizational and Policy Shifts
Proposals for Radical Changes in Program

New Review of the Foreign Aid Program

Projected Survey of Goals and Accomplishment

Foreign aid, whose annual authorizations and appropriations have been running into increasing trouble in Congress, is about to come under the searching gaze of a blue-ribbon White House committee. The new Committee to Strengthen the Security of the Free World, headed by Gen. Lucius D. Clay, was formed to give continuing counsel to the President and other top administration officials on programs of economic and military aid to foreign countries. The announcement of the group's appointment, Dec. 10, stated that its first task would be to undertake “an immediate review of our military and economic assistance to determine whether the level and distribution of these programs is contributing materially to the security of the United States and is directed to specific and attainable goals of economic and political stability in the free world.”

This initial review by a bipartisan and representative group of prominent men is thought to have two cardinal purposes: (1) To obtain suggestions for changes in the foreign aid program calculated to give it a broader base of support in the country and in Congress; and (2) to obtain recommendations for confining the over-all program within limits that will make it susceptible to tighter control without jeopardizing accomplishment of the aims of extending assistance to foreign countries. In the longer run, it seems probable that the new committee's function will be to keep actual administration of foreign aid under the constant and informed surveillance which is a recognized need but which cannot be provided by Congress.

When Budget Director David E. Bell takes over as administrator of the Agency for International Development later this month, he will be the third man in the post in less than two years. Bell's predecessor, New York lawyer Fowler Hamilton, resigned Nov. 7 amid rumors that President Kennedy was unhappy over his 14-month administration of the agency.