Foreign Relations of the United States, 1981–1988, Volume XXXVIII, International Economic Development; International Debt; Foreign Assistance

272. Memorandum From the Under Secretary of State for Security Assistance, Science and Technology (Buckley) to Secretary of State Haig¹

Washington, February 20, 1982

SUBJECT

• Friday Report

Foreign Policy Guidance for the FY 1984 Assistance Budget: I promised that you would shortly have for approval foreign policy guidelines for next year’s assistance process.

I am sorry to say that this will not happen as promptly as I had hoped. Peter McPherson has chosen to use the transmission of this particular item as a pretext for raising fundamental issues of who is responsible for overall policy guidance for allocating our foreign assistance resources.² What is at issue is a seemingly nit-picking, bureaucratic detail which nevertheless reflects a matter of fundamental principle which you may be called upon to settle.

Briefly, last year, we succeeded in integrating our security and economic assistance budgets in a new way which I believe better reflected policy goals for this Administration, rather than being driven by the self-justifying and self-contained imperatives of either development or military assistance theory. AID cooperated and participated fully in this effort, but the major new element achieved last year was our giving the regional assistant secretaries and their bureaus a stronger role in the process, stressing the obvious point that they had much to contribute in focusing our total assistance effort toward specific policy goals.³

Not everyone was satisfied with the results of the process, but all—especially the regional bureaus—recognized that they had been heard fairly.

Peter has made it clear that the grasps the meaning of what was done last year, and that his objective now is to roll back that process and re-establish AID’s pre-eminent,⁴ or exclusive, role in economic assistance budget-making. Thus his objection to my role in preparing comprehensive foreign policy guidelines to be issued by you. Thus the objections we can expect—advance notice has already been given—to our presenting our assistance budget for FY 83 as an integrated whole in congressional testimony next month. And thus his objection to our using the congressionally-mandated review of foreign assistance now underway as a vehicle to prepare a comprehensive Presidential report on this Administration’s concept of assistance in our foreign policy.

I recognize that this deserves fuller analysis and discussion in person. I also recognize that you may wish that we simply do the best we can in the circumstances without forcing the State/AID question to a head. But I felt I owed you at least some brief explanation of where we stand, and a warning word that we can expect some apparently simple foreign assistance issues to become complex and anguished because of the underlying philosophical differences with AID.

1. Source: National Archives, RG 59, Files of Alexander M. Haig, Jr., 1981–1982, Lot 82D370: Very Sensitive—Not for System—1981–1982. Secret; Not for the System. The memorandum was sent under a February 20 covering memorandum from Bremer to Haig on which Haig wrote: “Peter is a superb performer who has been always responsible to our national needs. But Jim is and has been absolutely right on this issue which must be resolved on policy grounds—Peter administers.”
2. Haig highlighted this sentence in the right-hand margin.
3. Haig placed a checkmark next to this sentence in the right-hand margin.
4. Haig highlighted this sentence in the right-hand margin.