To the Marrow

Every year Congressmen do their best to cut foreign aid to the bone, but in the current session their knives have sliced to the program's very marrow. Last week, after months of dispute between the House and Senate and still more wrangling between the House Foreign Affairs and Appropriations committees, the full House finally approved the lowest aid appropriation in the program's history and severely restricted U.S. military-aid activities.

And it could have been worse. In two days of angry debate, the Democratic leadership beat back repeated efforts to reduce the appropriation still further, finally mustered a vote of 167 to 143 for a bill providing $2.19 billion, a cut of $1 billion from President Johnson's original request. The earlier authorization measure approved by both houses required that the Government's revolving loan fund, which allows poor nations to make arms purchases, be ended by June 30. The House appropriations bill goes even further by forcing the President to reduce any underdeveloped nation's economic aid by the amount of its own funds that the country spends to buy sophisticated weaponry. Only Greece, Turkey, Iran, Israel, Taiwan, Korea and the Philippines would be exempted.

Normally the White House looks to the Senate for succor when House budget cutters get too frisky, but this year the Administration can hope for little Senate sympathy on foreign aid.

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