Ike and ICA

President Eisenhower's foreign aid program, hailed last spring as a bold, realistic attack on the world's economic problems, has evidently become the victim of unexpected, internal sniping. Usually, Congress is the perpetrator of cuts in aid to underdeveloped nations, but this week the administration seemed to outmaneuver its own program by retreat at the very center of the economic aid program.

The International Cooperation Administration, as the focus for all economic aid was one of the major points in the President's expanded aid program. With increased funds from Congress, the ICA was to meet what Eisenhower called the "critical needs" for more economic development throughout the world. This week, however, the director of the ICA, John B. Hollister, revealed that the Administration plans to hold back as much as 20 percent of this year's economic funds appropriated by Congress, so that the President will have a $100 million emergency reserve fund.

Since economic emergencies are certain to demand changes in any economic aid program, no one could oppose a contingency fund for the President's use. Hollister, however, must have overlooked one fact: Congress has already set aside $100 million explicitly for use at the President's day to day discretion. In short, it is quite clear that Hollister's first wish was to curtail the economic aid program in favor of a balanced budget: it is hardly necessary to cut back the current plans to create a fund that already exists.

There is an even more compelling reason not to cut back economic aid now. Today, the Soviet leaders arrive in New Delhi to tempt the Indians into accepting increased Soviet technical aid. Already, the Soviets have offered to India funds and technicians for a steel mill, to Egypt funds for a giant dam, and to Lebanon million of dollars for a river development project. These projects may be minute when compared to the U.S. aid that has flowed into Asia and the Middle East, but the start of a Soviet technical aid program poses a threat to the free world that must be met largely by increased U.S. technical aid.

No one can deny that technical aid alone is no panacea. Clearly, military forces are needed to counter opposing armies--whether in Korea, Iran or Germany. But technical aid is still the best weapon the U.S. has to demonstrate to the uncommitted peoples of free Asia and Africa that democracy can produce new roads and more rice. In a period of "competitive coexistence," the Administration should realize that technical aid is one of its most potent weapons.