Petty Petulance

The Johnson Administration has acted with hollow petulance in cutting off military aid to three countries and suspending it to two others for trading with Cuba. Although the effects of suspending aid to Morocco and Spain are as yet undetermined, the removal of a piddling $100,000 to France, England; and Yugoslavia will have little or no impact on their trading policies.

Severing aid to France and England is essentially a symbolic gesture; nonetheless it is a bitter irony that Castro has caused the United States to refuse military aid to its oldest partners in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. No less ironic is the fact that only the Cuban dictator could bring an end to military aid to a dictator in Spain. The curtailment of funds to France is a classic example of doing the right thing for the wrong reasons.

Although it did not issue a statement of explanation, presumably the Administration feels that the withdrawal of aid will serve as a warning to the 14 other countries which trade with Cuba.

In affronting two members of NATO, the Johnson administration can only have weakened that increasingly shaky alliance by giving de Gaulle further reason to demand independent national action. And the aid cutback will probably be used as effective anti-American propaganda in Latin America to substantiate the Castroite charge that we are bellicose and impotent.

President Johnson did not have to enforce the Cuban trade embargo. Although the 1963 Foreign Aid Act bans assistance to countries transporting merchandise to Cuba, it gives the President discretionary powers for enforcement. Instead of resisting emotional cries for action, Johnson has chosen to adopt a harsh foreign policy, to indulge in "get-tough" posturing.

If Johnson had hoped to demonstrate decisiveness in foreign affairs, the curtailment of aid was not the way to do it. Not only can his rigidity cause immediate harm in Latin America and Europe, but in the long run it may make a conservative Congress even more reluctant to accept necessary, flexible measures. The trade embargo simply will not isolate Cuba economically. By seeking to enforce it unilaterally, Johnson has succeeded in alienating our friends without hurting Castro.