25. Memorandum From the Administrator of the Agency for International Development (Bell) to the President’s Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Bundy)1
SUBJECT
- Background information for your lunch with Senator Fulbright2
Senator Fulbright proposes to break the aid program into a number of pieces. He would not only split off military aid, but would also:
- —abandon altogether our present bilateral programs of development lending and technical assistance, turning over all U.S. funds for these purposes to the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, and the U.N. agencies;
- —channel supporting assistance through the State Department or the Department of Defense; and
- —distribute the remaining bits and pieces of the aid program to unspecified places.
The Senator would accomplish this by a series of separate bills—one for each component of his fragmented program.
[Page 83]The case he argues for this proposal is threefold:
- —he thinks bilateral aid involves the U.S. in all sorts of awkward relationships with less-developed countries whose problems are extremely difficult, reaping us more antagonism than respect for our foreign policy;
- —he thinks international agencies are in a stronger position than the United States by itself to impose the kind of self-help standards which are necessary to achieve progress in the less-developed countries;
- —he thinks breaking up the bill in the Congress will confuse the opposition and result, at least for the time being, in an easier legislative passage.
We think these arguments add up to a very weak case—so weak that we suspect they are really only rationalizations for (a) Fulbright’s understandable boredom with the annual effort he must make, and the annual pounding he takes, in leading the struggle for aid legislation, and (b) his feeling of being neglected by the Administration, in spite of his yeoman efforts in the Senate and in Arkansas during the election campaign (he feels that those who differ with the President, such as Russell and Morse, get more attention than the President’s friends, such as Fulbright).
On the merits, Fulbright’s arguments are far outweighed by these considerations:
- —The U.S. plainly needs strong bilateral aid programs to support its foreign policy of seeking to influence events in less-developed countries toward peaceful progress; we cannot escape involvement in the affairs of these countries—aid permits this involvement to be constructive and helpful and is far more of an asset than a liability to us. (Fulbright’s proposals, incidentally, would not avoid U.S. bilateral aid involvement in our most difficult countries—Vietnam and the Congo—both of which are financed from supporting assistance funds which he recognizes would have to remain bilateral.)
- —Only some, not all, international agencies apply strong self-help standards; in Latin America, the Alliance under Tom Mann is far more effective in requiring self-help action than is the IDB under Felipe Herrera. Furthermore, the views of international agencies may not advance U.S. interests; at present, for example, the United States is strenuously seeking to get the World Bank to modify its position with respect to Turkey; if we did not have a bilateral aid program at the present time we would be hard put to it to pursue our interests in Turkey.
- —Legislatively it seems clear that most members of the Congress, unlike Fulbright, would be inclined to make much less money available for a multilateral program than for a bilateral program. Moreover, Congress and the Administration would probably have to spend more, not less, time and effort on aid if it were necessary to pass several bills rather than one (or at most two).
It seems to us, therefore, that Fulbright’s proposals are unacceptable. We should not, however, make a wholly negative response, and I suggest trying out the following points as elements of an alternative legislative proposal:
- 1.
- A Presidential request for a multi-year authorization, which would, if successful, greatly ease the legislative burden on Fulbright.
- 2.
- We are not adverse to—indeed we favor—the expansion of multi-lateral aid, as rapidly as the Europeans are prepared to match larger amounts. We might write into the legislation an authorization permitting the President to transfer bilateral funds to international agencies as rapidly as matching amounts are forthcoming (on the usual basis of the United States providing up to 40%).
- 3.
- The President will certainly present to the Congress, as he did last year, a tight, lean, “bare-bones” aid program which, along with demonstrable improvements in administrative efficiency, ought to command more respect and less opposition in the Congress, as was in fact the case this past year.
These alternatives, I think, offer an attractive and feasible legislative package. Needless to say, they do not change the facts of Vietnam and the Congo, nor will they change the attitude of Morse, Gross, Passman and Ellender; but they offer as good a basis for legislative action as can be devised.
Fulbright will still, I suspect, propose that someone else on his Committee be asked to lead the legislative battle for the President. Aside from the fact that the Chairman of the Committee ought to take responsibility for such a major element of the President’s program, there is in fact no alternative. The ranking Democrat is Sparkman, whose impending election campaign (1966) rules him out. Next is Mansfield, whose duties as Majority Leader preclude such a responsibility. And next is Morse.