National Affairs: The Easy Victim

Every year it gets a little harder for the Administration to sell foreign aid to the U.S. Congress—and 1958 threatens to be the hardest year yet. With the demands of Sputnik era defense and of welfare-type spending that cannot be cut, even members of Congress who know perfectly well that foreign aid is really more hardheaded than softhearted may find themselves gripped by an urge to slice away at the only easy victim in town.

Aware that a classic battle looms, President Eisenhower sent to Congress last week a request for $3.9 billion in foreign-aid funds, $500 million more than the budget-slashing Congress voted last year. Two-thirds of the total is tagged for military aid and defense support, one-third for economic aid. Along with his request for "the smallest amount we may wisely invest in mutual security," the President sent a strongly worded message defending it.

The unfortunate term "foreign aid," the President said, implies "some sort of giveaway," but in fact the worldwide mutual-security program is "of transcendent importance" to the U.S.'s security. To discard or drastically slash the program, the President warned, would bring about a "basic impairment of free world power" and a "crumbling'' of the U.S.'s "strategic overseas positions." The results would be heavier defense spending, higher taxes, bigger draft calls and "ultimately, a beleaguered America, her freedoms limited by mounting defense costs, and almost alone in a world dominated by international Communism."