Foreign Aid Fiasco; C. H. Wolfe

Nevertheless, this $115 billion sacrifice-or even two, three, or four times that much-might have been totally justified, had it been made voluntarily in the form of private gifts and investments-and especially if the Mr. Wolfe was a member of the staff of the Foundation for Eco nomic Education when this article was published in May 1956. [109 ] money spent had been successful in guaranteeing Amer ican security in a conflict-torn world. Pleas for More Aid Since our foreign aid program has been going full blast for almost ten years now, it is quite possible to analyze not only its motives and methods but also its objectives, and-very important-to what extent they have been achieved. Taking first things first, what has been the motive of Uncle Sam's giant give-away program? It is often por trayed as a Christian compassion for the "downtrodden" or "unfortunate" nations of the world-especially for our noble World War II allies. Such a portrayal appeals strongly to millions of kind-hearted Americans and has been voiced by many proponents of foreign aid, includ ing Secretary Marshall. On May 13, 1947, he declared in an overseas broadcast: "There has been much of misun derstanding regarding our program of aid to Greece.

There has been much of distortion and misrepresentation of our purpose. We are answering the call of a valiant ally who has suffered much .... It is as simple as that." Inconsunent Pretense But only two months before, on March 12, President Truman, in urging the Greek loan, had rested his appeal frankly on the argument that "the very existence of the Greek state" was being "threatened by the terrorist [ 110] activities of several thousand armed men, led by com munists." Thus, according to President Truman, the real objec tive was to "buy" allies in our struggle against Soviet communism. Explaining the purpose of our foreign aid in 1951, Assistant Secretary of State George C. McGhee frankly asserted his opinion that: "The United States cannot afford to follow the forces of neutralism and anti Western sentiment to gain any further ground, nor to allow these forces to be captured and exploited by inter nal communism." And the objective in 1951 is precisely the objective in 1956, as countless recent official acts and statements testify.

It should be plain by now that the primary motive is by no means a compassionate concern for other na tions. It should likewise be clear that the ultimate objec tive is not the economic recovery of war-ravished Europe nor the industrialization of impoverished Asia-as is often alleged-but one thing only: the gaining of anticommu nist allies. A Test of u. S. Motives Anyone who entertains a lingering doubt about this should ask himself: Why were U.s. officials so perturbed when Russia offered to pay for the monster dam at Aswan on the Upper Nile? Would not this have greatly helped the Egyptians, and saved millions of American dollars for other worthy foreign aid projects? Or, why were State Department spokesmen so agi tated this past winter when Khrushchev and Bulganin [ III ] toured Asia with big promises of Russian aid? Surely, if concern for vitalizing the stagnant Asian economy had been uppermost, then our government should have said: "Wonderful! Now the Soviets are joining us in the great task of lifting the Asians out of povertyl" But no, Wash ington was frightened, and considered this Russian over ture as reason number one for hiking our 1956 foreign aid appropriation to the staggering total of $5 billion dollars.