FOREIGN AID
One day in the spring of 1961, a New York lawyer received a long
distance telephone call. Concerning this call, the _New York Times_
reported:
"'This is President Kennedy,' the telephone voice said.
"'The hell you say,' retorted the lawyer. 'I guess that makes me
the Prime Minister of England, but what can I do for you?'
"'Nobody's pulling your leg,' the telephone voice said. 'This is
President Kennedy all right. I want to talk to you about coming
down here to Washington to help me with this long-term foreign aid
legislation.'"
One week later, the New York lawyer took an apartment in Washington and,
as a member of President Kennedy's "Task Force" on foreign aid, started
writing the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961. The lawyer is Theodore
Tannenwald, Jr., a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, who wrote
many of the foreign aid bills which President Harry Truman presented to
Congress and who, during the first Eisenhower term, was assistant
director of the Mutual Security Program.
After Mr. Tannenwald and his task force had finished writing the 1961
foreign aid bill, President Kennedy appointed Tannenwald coordinator in
charge of "presenting" the bill to committees of the House and Senate.
Three cabinet officers and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
took their orders from Mr. Tannenwald, who was, according to the _New
York Times_, "the Administration's composer, orchestrator and conductor
of the most important legislative symphony of the Congressional
session."
With admiration, the _Times_ said:
"Mr. Tannenwald has been a kind of special White House ambassador
to Capitol Hill. While the legislative committees struggled with
the controversial proposal to by-pass the appropriating process and
give the President authority to borrow $8,800,000,000 (8 billion,
800 million) for development lending in the next five years, he was
the man in the ante-room empowered to answer questions in the name
of the President."
* * * * *
In July, 1961, President Kennedy completed Mr. Tannenwald's foreign aid
"orchestra." On July 10, in ceremonies at the White House, the President
formally announced creation of the newest foreign-aid propaganda
organization, the Citizens Committee for International Development, with
Warren Lee Pierson as chairman. Here is the membership of the Citizens
Committee for International Development:
_Eugenie Anderson_ (member of the Atlantic Union Committee);
_William Benton_ (Chairman of the Board of _Encyclopaedia
Britannica_; member of the Atlantic Union Committee); _Everett N.
Case_ (President of Colgate University); _O. Roy Chalk_ (President
of the District of Columbia Transit Company); _Malcolm S. Forbes_
(Editor and Publisher of _Forbes Magazine_); _Eleanor Clark
French_; _Albert M. Greenfield_ (Honorary Chairman of the Board of
Bankers Security Corporation, Philadelphia); _General Alfred M.
Gruenther_ (President of the American National Red Cross; member of
the Atlantic Union Committee); _Murray D. Lincoln_ (Chairman of
Nationwide Insurance Company); _Sol M. Linowitz_ (Chairman of Zerox
Corporation); _George Meany_ (President of AFL-CIO); _William S.
Paley_ (Chairman of the Board, Columbia Broadcasting System);
_Warren Lee Pierson_ (Chairman of the Board, Trans-World Airways);
_Ross Pritchard_ (Professor of Political Science, Southwestern
University, Memphis); _Thomas S. Nichols_ (Chairman of the Board
of Olin Mathieson Chemical Corporation; member of the Atlantic
Union Committee); _Mrs. Mary G. Roebling_ (President Of Trenton
Trust Company); _David Sarnoff_ (Chairman of Radio Corporation of
America); _Walter Sterling Surrey_ (legal consultant, Economic
Cooperation Administration); _Thomas J. Watson, Jr._, (President of
International Business Machines Corporation); _Walter H. Wheeler,
Jr._, (President of Pitney-Bowes); _James D. Zellerbach_ (President
and Director of Crown-Zellerbach Corporation; Chairman of
Fibreboard Products, Inc.; member of the Atlantic Union Committee
and United World Federalists); _Ezra Zilkha_ (head of Zilkha &
Sons).
Of these 22 people, 12 (including the Chairman) are members of the
Council on Foreign Relations: Benton, Case, Gruenther, Paley, Pierson,
Pritchard, Nichols, Sarnoff, Surrey, Watson, Wheeler, and Zellerbach.
* * * * *
Heads of the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations attended the White House
luncheon when the Committee was formed. Vice President Johnson,
Secretary of State Dean Rusk, and Attorney General Robert Kennedy were
also present. The President urged each and all to get foundations,
business firms, civic organizations, and the people generally, to put
pressure on Congress in support of the 1961 foreign aid bill.
Within a week after the July 10, White House luncheon meeting (which
launched the CFR's foreign aid committee), the President and his
high-level aides were talking about a grave crisis in Berlin and about
foreign aid as _the_ essential means of "meeting" that crisis.
On July 25, when congressional debates over the foreign aid bill were in
a critical stage, President Kennedy spoke to the nation on radio and
television, solemnly warning the people that the Berlin situation was
dangerous.
Immediate, additional support for the foreign aid bill came from the
country's liberal and leftwing forces, who united in a passionate
plea--urging the American people to support the President "in this grave
hour."
* * * * *
On August 27, an Associated Press release announced that House Leader
John W. McCormack (Democrat, Massachusetts), was attempting to enlist
the cooperation of 2,400 city mayors in support of a long-range foreign
aid bill to meet the President's demands.
McCormack sent the city officials a statement of his views with a cover
letter suggesting that the matter be brought to "the attention of
citizens of your community through publication in your local newspaper,"
and, further, urging their "personal endorsement of this bipartisan
program through the medium of your local press...."
State Department officials scheduled speaking tours throughout the land,
and CFR affiliated organizations (like the Councils on World Affairs)
started the build-up to provide audiences--all in the interest of
"briefing" the American people on the necessity and beauties of foreign
aid.
Anyone with sense had to wonder how the giving of American tax money to
communist governments in Europe and to socialist governments all over
the earth could help us resist communism in Berlin. But with the top
leaders in our society (from the President downward to officials in the
National Council of Churches) telling us that the survival of our nation
depended on the President's getting all the foreign aid "authorization"
he wanted--most Americans remained silent, feeling that such
consequential and complicated matters should be left in the hands of our
chosen leaders.
By the end of August, the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 had been passed
by both houses of Congress; and the Berlin crisis moved from front page
lead articles in the nation's newspapers to less important columns.
Thus, in 1961, as always, the foreign aid bill was a special project of
our invisible government, the Council on Foreign Relations. And, in
1961, as always, the great, tax-supported propaganda machine used a fear
psychology to bludgeon the people into silence and the Congress into
obedience.
President Kennedy signed the Act as Public Law 87-195 on September 4,
1961.
* * * * *
Public Law 87-195 authorized $10,253,500,000 (10 billion, 253 million,
500 thousand) in foreign aid: $3,066,500,000 appropriated for the 1962
fiscal year, and $7,187,000,000 Treasury borrowing authorized for the
next five years. The law does require the President to obtain annual
appropriations for the Treasury borrowing, but permits him to make
commitments to lend the money to foreign countries, _before_ he obtains
appropriations from Congress.
It was widely reported in the press that Congress had denied the
President the long-term borrowing authority he had requested; but the
President himself was satisfied. He knew that by promising loans to
foreign governments (that is, "committing" the funds in advance of
congressional appropriation) he would thus force Congress (in the
interest of showing "national unity" and of not "repudiating" our
President) to appropriate whatever he promised.
On August 29, the President said:
"The compromise ... is wholly satisfactory. It gives the United
States Government authority to make commitments for long-term
development programs with reasonable assurance that these
commitments will be met."
* * * * *
Former Vice President Richard M. Nixon (a member of the CFR) was happy
about the 1961 foreign aid bill. On August 29, Nixon, on the ABC radio
network, said that he favored such "long-range foreign aid planning,
financed through multi-year authorizations and annual appropriations."
Nelson A. Rockefeller, Republican Governor of New York, announced that
he too favored "long-range foreign aid planning, financed through
multi-year authorizations and annual appropriations"--exactly like
Nixon.
Former President Eisenhower was also happy. He, too, said he favored
this sort of thing.
Senator J. William Fulbright (Democrat, Arkansas) was almost jubilant:
he said Congress for the next five years would be under "strong
obligation" to put up the money for whatever the President promises to
foreign governments.
All in all, it is improbable that Congress ever passed another bill more
destructive of American constitutional principles; more harmful to our
nation politically, economically, morally, and militarily; and more
helpful to communism-socialism all over the earth--than the Foreign
Assistance Act of 1961, which was, from beginning to end, a product of
the Council on Foreign Relations.
* * * * *
Our foreign aid does grievous harm to the American people by burdening
them with excessive taxation, thus making it difficult for them to
expand their own economy. This gives government pretext for intervening
with more taxation and controls for domestic subsidies.
Furthermore, the money that government takes away from us for foreign
aid is used to subsidize our political enemies and economic competitors
abroad. Note, for example, the large quantities of agricultural goods
which we give every year to communist satellite nations, thus enabling
communist governments to control the hungry people of those nations.
Note that while we are giving away our agricultural surpluses to
communist and socialist nations, we, under the 1961 foreign aid bill (as
under previous ones), are subsidizing agricultural production in the
underdeveloped countries.
The 1961 foreign aid bill prohibited direct aid to Cuba, but authorized
contributions to United Nations agencies, which were giving aid to Cuba.
At a time when the American economy was suffering from the flight of
American industry to foreign lands, the 1961 foreign aid bill offered
subsidies and investment guarantees to American firms moving abroad.
Our foreign aid enriches and strengthens political leaders and ruling
oligarchies (which are often corrupt) in underdeveloped lands; and it
does infinite harm to the people of those lands, when it inflates their
economy and foists upon them an artificially-produced industrialism
which they are not prepared to sustain or even understand.
* * * * *
The basic argument for foreign aid is that by helping the underdeveloped
nations develop, we will keep them from falling under the dictatorship
of communism. The argument is false and unsound, historically,
politically, economically, and morally.
The communists have never subjugated a nation by winning the loyalties
of the oppressed and downtrodden. The communists first win the support
of liberal-intellectuals, and then use them to subvert and pervert all
established mores and ideals and social and political arrangements.
Our foreign aid does not finance freedom in foreign lands; it finances
socialism; and a world socialist system is what communists are trying to
establish. As early as 1921, Joseph Stalin said that the advanced
western nations must give economic aid to other nations in order to
socialize their economies and prepare them for integration in the
communist's world socialist system.
Socializing the economies of all nations so that all can be merged into
a one-world system was the objective of Colonel Edward M. House, who
founded the Council on Foreign Relations, and has been the objective of
the Council, and of all its associated organizations, from the
beginning.