Middle East Debate (Contd.)

For 9 1/2 hours of two days last week, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles faced the combined Senate Foreign Relations and Armed Services Committees to defend anew the President's request for authority to use U.S. forces and dollars to keep the Communists out of the Middle East. Buzzed by a swarm of Democrats headed by Arkansas' William Fulbright, Minnesota's Hubert Humphrey and Oregon's Wayne Morse, Dulles said sharply that the Middle Eastern situation is the most dangerous that the U.S. has encountered in ten years. When North Dakota's Republican Bill Langer asked whether the Eisenhower plan would increase the chances of war, Dulles replied categorically: ' would say that if this resolution passes, I think there is little likelihood; but if it does not pass, I think there is a great likelihood."

The Administration would have no objection, Dulles continued, if Congress specified that Congress could terminate the authorization for the use of troops or freehanded spending of aid funds at any time. The President was willing to report to Congress on the use of his powers twice a year instead of once. Painfully aware that he had not sold his case for the need for foreign-aid flexibility in the Middle East, Dulles explained how present congressional restrictions on the spending of foreign aid would rob the President of the initiative that he sorely needs in the crisis. He emphasized that a vote for the Eisenhower plan would not commit any Congressman "for long-term aid."

By week's end final Senate action on the resolution seemed unlikely before late February, and then, perhaps, in amended form. Despite the shrills of such as Oregon's Morse ("I'm so frightened I'm almost speechless"), the military request would get by with a healthy but not lopsided majority; the economic request--about which Minority Leader Bill Knowland, among others, was hesitant--might be in trouble.

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