Nation: Kicked Out

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AID Chief Gilligan goes

"Maybe he talked too loud." That was one explanation in Washington for the sudden resignation last week of John Gilligan as the administrator of the Agency for International Development. A former Congressman and Governor of Ohio from 1970 to 1974, Gilligan clashed with top Administration officials over the policies of the bureaucracy that in fiscal 1978 dispensed $1.7 billion in foreign aid. In fact, the resignation may have been forced by his boss, Secretary of State Cyrus Vance.

Gilligan became controversial almost from the day he arrived at AID two years ago. After surveying his staff, he bluntly declared that too many of them were "overage, overgrade and over here." His last complaint reflected his conviction that foreign aid administrators should be based in the countries being served.

While Gilligan's sweeping managerial style won some praise in Congress, it undermined morale at AID. When he asked subordinates to anonymously grade his performance last year, 80% rated him "unsatisfactory." He antagonized the Departments of State, Treasury and Agriculture by stubbornly advocating that some of their foreign assistance activities be handed over, along with the Peace Corps, to a new superagency that he presumably would head. Nor could Vance have appreciated Gilligan's criticisms of the $2 billion in economic aid the U.S. now gives Israel and Egypt, 25.6% of the entire economic foreign assistance program.

Gilligan was never personally close to Carter, and his tenure has been in doubt for some time. His own response to such talk: "I'm not leaving until the guy kicks me out." That apparently is what Cyrus Vance did last week.