The Congress: Bedside Manner

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Mere mention of the words "foreign aid" is enough to bring out the beast in many Congressmen. Yet last week, after four hours of debate, and by a 249 to 148 vote, the House authorized a $3.37 billion foreign aid program—only $12.7 million less than President Johnson had originally asked for.

Part of the credit for the bill's smooth passage went to the President, who persuaded Congress that he was asking only what he absolutely needed; previous Administrations often raised congressional hackles by padding foreign aid in anticipation of cutbacks. More credit went to AID Administrator David E. Bell, generally recognized as the best boss that foreign aid has had. Still more went to Congressman Thomas E. ("Doc") Morgan, 58, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and a man with the comforting way of a small-town doctor—which is what he is.

"A Lot of Mileage." The son of a Pennsylvania coal miner, Morgan is a physician with a $45,000-a-year practice back in the mining community of Fredericktown, Pa., to which he commutes on weekends. "To me," says Morgan, "taking a foreign aid bill through is just like going to the operating room. Many critics say Morgan uses a bedside manner. Well, I make very few enemies in committee or on the floor. I use kindness, and I get a lot of mileage out of it."

Morgan's bedside manner includes a willingness to accommodate foreign aid critics whenever it is possible without compromising the program itself. Thus, he worked with the Administration in writing amendments expressing the will of Congress not to give U.S. aid to Nasser's United Arab Republic, to countries that permit mob attacks on American property, or to countries that allow their ships to send goods to North Viet Nam that help the Communist economy and war effort.

"I Fought Back." In his weeks of patient, plodding work on the bill, Morgan only once lost his temper. That was after Arkansas Democrat William Fulbright, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, urged that economic and military aid be handled as separate bills. The Administration sent Morgan a 68-page draft that went at least part way toward appeasing Fulbright. To Morgan, that was murder: he was convinced that many Congressmen would seize upon separate bills as an opportunity to kill economic aid altogether. "I fought back," he says. "I told the President point-blank that the day you take economic aid away from military aid, you won't have a bill." The result: a revised, 20-page draft that met Morgan's objections.

In explaining the bill on the House floor, "Doc" Morgan took the clinical view. "We must face the fact," he said, "that any new, all-purpose, wasteproof, foolproof, and low-cost model of a foreign aid program is not yet on the drawing boards." His soft sell was all the more effective because in the past Congress has been offended by overblown claims made for foreign aid.