Life for Foreign Aid

If the House and Senate were benumbed and confused when they came to the final vote on foreign aid, it was not too surprising. Early in the session the Administration had hinted broadly at a bold new program for long-range economic aid, had cited Egypt's Aswan Dam as a prime example of a worthy long-range project; now the Aswan Dam program had blown sky-high in the latest Middle East explosion. Never did the Administration present a coherent world economic policy. In May NATO's retiring commander General Alfred Maxmilian Gruenther testified grimly on the urgent need for arming the U.S.'s NATO allies in Western Europe. Since then there has been semi-official talk in Britain, France and the U.S. about the inevitable cutting down of NATO forces. At first the President asked for $4.9 billion as "essential" to U.S. security, later said he would accept $4.3 billion, finally turned to the Senate in desperation to get a raise in the $3.4 billion appropriation voted by a rebellious House (TIME, July 23).

Last week, after composing their differences, the Senate and House settled grudgingly on a foreign-aid appropriation of $3,766,570,000 in new money for fiscal 1957, approved expenditure of an additional $240,800,000 carried over from last year. Then, delighted to be rid of the whole thing after a go-around of four months, Congress sent the bill to the President.

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