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Foreign Aid and the Policy Process: 1957

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

H. Field Haviland Jr.
H. Field Haviland Jr.
Affiliation:
The Brookings Institution
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Extract

For students of government the annually recurring debates over foreign aid are a stethoscope held to the heart of the United States foreign policy process. They reveal in classic form the political strains and stresses that have come to afflict this country's postwar external relations. Foreign aid has required new concepts, skills, personnel, institutions, legislation, and funds. This modern brand of “dollar diplomacy” has not only jostled traditional structures and processes within the executive branch but has called upon the legislator and the man in the street to adjust to a new vision of the American mission and to what it involves in material terms as well. Herewith is a case study of that reappraisal.

The foreign aid debate of 1957, centering around the preparation and approval of the authorization and appropriation acts for fiscal 1958, was especially instructive because it was the occasion for a resounding collision between a greatly intensified crusade to redirect and reinvigorate the program, particularly in support of long-range economic development, and an equally determined campaign to bear down on the brakes. The present commentary focuses primarily on the roles of the official executive and legislative participants, as well as of influential non-governmental interests, during the course of this debate. The story sheds some light on both the foreign policy process in general and on some of the major substantive and administrative issues at stake in this particular case.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 52 , Issue 3 , September 1958 , pp. 689 - 724
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1958

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References

1 Senate Resolution 285, July 11, 1956.

2 These studies have been published in a single volume, Foreign Aid Program, Compilation of Studies and Surveys Prepared Under the Direction of the Special Committee to Study the Foreign Aid Program, U.S. Senate Document No. 52, 85 Cong., 1 sess. (1957).

3 For the general MIT position see Millikan, Max F. and Rostow, Walt W., A Proposal: Key to an Effective Foreign Policy (1957)Google Scholar. This research reflected not only first-hand field experience but numerous consultations with various knowledgeable and influential leaders both outside and inside the government, including Robert Bowie. Men such as Chester Bowles, Paul Hoffman, Senator Alexander Smith, Republican of New Jersey, and Senator J. W. Fulbright, Democrat of Arkansas, were particularly impressed with it. The MIT group was asked to prepare the key Senate study on “The Objectives of United States Economic Assistance Programs.”

4 Other Senate studies particularly relevant to the major issues involved in the basic legislation included those by the Research Center in Economic Development and Cultural Change of the University of Chicago, directed by Bert F. Hoselitz, on “The Role of Foreign Aid: the Development of Other Countries”; by the Brookings Institution, under the direction of Robert W. Hartley, Paul T. David, and H. Field Haviland, Jr., on “Administrative Aspects of the United States Foreign Assistance Programs”; by the Institute of War and Peace Studies of Columbia University, under the direction of William T. R. Fox and William W. Marvel, on “Military Assistance and the Security of the United States, 1947–1956”; by the Council for Economic and Industry Research, Inc., under the direction of Arthur E. Burns, on “Foreign Assistance Activities of the Communist Bloc and their Implications for the United States”; and by the National Planning Association, under the direction of Gerhard Colm, on “The Foreign Aid Programs and the United States Economy.”

5 Foreign Policy and Mutual Security, Draft Report Submitted to the Committee on Foreign Affairs … Together with Hearings …, December 24, 1957. Those who testified during the hearings included nineteen outstanding figures in the foreign policy field, including Paul Hoffman, John J. McCloy, George Kennan, Admiral Arthur W. Radford, and Chester Bowles.

6 Washington, G. P. O. Apart from the chairman, the Committee consisted of Colgate W. Darden, Jr., President of the University of Virginia; Richard R. Deupree, Chairman of the Board, Proctor and Gamble Company; John L. Lewis, President, United Mine Workers of America; Whitelaw Reid, Chairman of the Board, Herald Tribune; Walter Bedell Smith, Vice Chairman of the Board, American Machine and Foundry Company, former Army general and Under Secretary of State; and Jesse W. Tapp, Chairman of the Board, Bank of America.

7 The other members were Gardner Cowles, President, Cowles Magazines; Robert P. Daniel, President, Virginia State College; Harvey S. Firestone, Jr., Chairman, The Firestone Tire and Rubber Company; J. Peter Graee, President, W. R. Grace and Company; Wilton T. Halverson, Dean Emeritus, School of Public Health, University of California; Mrs. J. Ramsay Harris, Member, United States Committee for UNICEF; Lloyd A. Mashburn, General President, International Union of Wood, Wire, and Metal Workers, AFL-CIO; Lee W. Minton, International President, Glass Bottle Blowers Association, AFL-CIO; W. I. Myers, Dean, New York State College of Agriculture, Cornell University; Herschel D. Newsom, Master, National Grange; William M. Rand, formerly Deputy Director of the Mutual Security Agency; and Laurence F. Whittemore, Chairman of the Board, Brown Company.

8 In the fiscal 1957 legislation, there were four principal categories of foreign aid: “military assistance” (military materials and services), “defense support” (economic assistance required to support approved military programs), “development assistance” (aid to promote basic economic development, primarily in countries not receiving military assistance and defense support), and “technical cooperation” (transfer of skills with small amounts of necessary supplies and equipment).

9 The Foreign Aid Program, Hearings Before the [Senate] Special Committee to Study the Foreign Aid Program, 85 Cong., 1 sess. (1957), p. 400.

10 U. S. Senate, Foreign Aid, Report of the Special Committee to Study the Foreign Aid Program, May 13, 1957Google Scholar, 85 Cong., 1 Sess., Report No. 300.

11 For text of the authorization bill see S. 2130, 85 Cong., 1 sess., introduced on May 22, 1957. For the President's accompanying message see Department of State, Department of Defense, ICA, The Mutual Security Program, A Summary Presentation, June, 1957, pp. 1–13Google Scholar.

12 The best single report is American Programs of Foreign Aid (February 1957) prepared by the National Opinion Research CenterGoogle Scholar. Other materials were prepared by the American Institute of Public Opinion and Elmo Roper and Associates.

13 U. S. Senate, The Mutual Security Act of 1957, Report of the Committee on Foreign Relations, S. 2130, 85 Cong., 1 sess., Report No. 417.

14 U.S. Senate, The Mutual Security Act of 1957, 85 Cong., 1 sess., Report 417, Part 2.

15 Mutual Security Act of 1957, Hearings before the Committee on Foreign Affairs, 85 Cong., 1 sess., Parts I–VIII. On the general role of the House in this field, see the recent study by Carroll, Holbert N., The House of Representatives in Foreign Affairs (1958)Google Scholar.

16 U.S. House of Representatives, Mutual Security Act of 1957, Report of the Committee on Foreign Affairs on S. 2130, 85 Cong., 1 sess., House Report No. 776.

17 Congressional Quarterly, July 17, 1957, p. 10862Google Scholar.

18 Ibid., p. 10861.

19 Ibid., July 19, 1957, p. 11026.

20 House of Representatives, Mutual Security Act of 1957, Conference Report, 85 Cong., 1 sess., Report No. 1042, p. 5Google Scholar.

21 Ibid., pp. 4–5.

22 New York Times, Aug. 18, 1957.

23 House of Representatives, Mutual Security Appropriation Bill, 1958 … Report, 85 Cong., 1 sess., Report No. 1172.

24 New York Times, Aug. 20, 1957.

25 Ibid.

26 New York Times, Aug. 28, 1957.

27 Ibid.

28 Congressional Record, Aug. 29, 1957, p. 15049Google Scholar.

29 Ibid., p. 15253.

30 See Cheever, Daniel S. and Haviland, H. Field Jr.,, Americal Foreign Policy and the Separation of Powers (1952)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Cohen, Bernard C., The Political Process and Foreign Policy, The Making of the Japanese Peace Settlement (1957)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Crabb, Cecil V. Jr.,, Bipartisan Foreign Policy, Myth or Reality? (1957)Google Scholar; Dahl, Robert A., Congress and Foreign Policy (1950)Google Scholar; Grassmuck, George L., Sectional Biases in Congress on Foreign Policy (1951)Google Scholar; and Westerfield, H. Bradford, Foreign Policy and Party Politics (1955)Google Scholar; Carroll, op. cit.

31 For particularly relevant studies, see Almond, Gabriel, The American People and Foreign Policy (1950)Google Scholar; Cohen, op. cit.; Dahl, op. cit.; Bailey, Thomas A., The Man in the Street (1948)Google Scholar; Lubell, Samuel, The Future of American Politics (1952)Google Scholar; and Markel, Lester (ed.), Public Opinion and Foreign Policy (1949)Google Scholar.

32 See Grassmuck, op. cit.; Westerfield, op. cit.

33 Congressional Record, August 15, 1957, p. 13517Google Scholar.

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