Foreign Relations: Nyet to Nicolae

"I want to make my position clear," Arkansas' Wilbur Mills told reporters. "I am not for it." And such is the nature of the congressional pecking order that a not-for-it verdict from the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee means death for any bill concerned. Thus President Johnson's measure to liberalize trade with Communist countries of Eastern Europe perished last week almost before it saw the light of day—or reason.

The Administration viewed the bill as a pragmatic token of encouragement to the increasingly self-assertive, outward-looking nations within the once monolithic Communist bloc. And while Methodist Mills airily dismissed the need for such a gesture, a dramatic "independence" speech by Rumanian Boss Nicolae Ceausescu pointedly underlined the urgency behind a scheduled fence-mending mission to Bucharest by Soviet Leader Leonid Brezhnev (see THE WORLD).

The Johnson Administration had no realistic expectations of overcoming this year ingrained congressional opposition to a major bill that appears to aid Communism. It had hoped that at least hearings would be held, so that in a year or two even Wilbur Mills might realize the unwisdom of forever saying nyet to the likes of Nicolae, and vice versa.