Foreign Aid: The Stunning Setback

President Kennedy was furious. In a hastily called news conference he denounced the U.S. House of Representa tives for a "shortsighted, irresponsible and dangerously partisan" action. The House's Republican leaders, he snapped, were guilty of "a shocking and thoughtless" attack on a program vital to U.S. security.

That program was foreign aid — and the House that very afternoon had indeed given the President's foreign aid authorization bill an awful going-over. The Administration originally had requested $4.9 billion for foreign aid. Then, after the report of a presidential committee headed by retired...