Special Message to the Congress on the Mutual Security Program.

To the Congress of the United States:

For almost a decade the United States has moved, year by year, with growing success, to help fortify the economies and military strength of nations of the free world. Over the years this effort has changed in size and character in keeping with changing world affairs. Today it remains as indispensable to the security of every American citizen and to the building of an enduring peace as on the day it began nine years ago.

Today this great nation, at the peak of its peacetime military and economic strength, must not hesitate or retreat in this vital undertaking. Nor can we subordinate this program to local concerns or collateral issues, on the unsound premise that steady progress through this program for nine years makes it no longer necessary.

We cannot now falter in our quest for peace.

The need for a mutual security program is urgent because there are still nations that are eager to strive with us for peace and freedom but, without our help, lack the means of doing so.

The need is urgent because there are still forces hostile to freedom that compel the Free World to maintain adequate and coordinated military power to deter aggression.

The need is urgent because there are still peoples who aspire to sustain their freedom but confront economic obstacles that are beyond their capabilities of surmounting alone.

These facts are as fundamental to our own security and well-being as the maintenance of our own armed forces.

Our goal is clear--an enduring peace with justice. To achieve it will continue to require effort, skill, patience, and sacrifice. Toward it we must and will strive constantly by every means available to us.

We must continue to work with other countries to insure that each free nation remains free, secure from external aggression and subversion, and able to develop a society marked by human welfare, individual liberty, and a rising standard of living. We must continue to maintain our economic and military strength at home. We must continue to stimulate expansion of trade and investment in the free world. We must continue helping to build the productive capacities of free nations through public loans and guaranties of private investment. We must continue to provide technical knowledge and essential materials to speed the advance of other nations in peaceful uses of the atom. We must continue our cultural and educational exchanges to expand mutual knowledge and understanding. We must continue and intensify our information programs so that the peoples of the world may know our peaceful purposes and our love of human liberty. And through our mutual security programs we must continue helping to create in the free world conditions in which freedom can survive and develop, and free nations can maintain the defensive strength necessary to deter aggression.

Peace with justice remains the sole objective of our mutual security programs. We have no other interest to advance. We have no desire or intent to subjugate or subvert other peoples--no purpose to change their chosen political, economic, or cultural patterns--no wish to make any of them our satellites. We seek only to further the cause of freedom and independence and to develop the military strength necessary to protect and defend it, in the interest of peace.

To help a free country to maintain forces necessary for the protection of its freedom and independence but beyond those which it can alone support may mean foregoing some domestic expenditure. To help a less developed nation in its initial steps toward an economy that can sustain freedom and independence and provide opportunity for higher living standards may mean postponement of desirable projects here in this country. We must continue willing to make these sacrifices, for the benefits we gain in the interests of peace are well worth the price. The mutual security program is a demand of the highest priority upon our resources.

Because our people and the peoples of other nations in the Free World have been willing to make the necessary sacrifices, the past mutual security programs have achieved a real measure of success. By combined effort the free world has advanced toward stability and toward economic strength. It has achieved the power and the will to resist aggression. Collective security arrangements have brought into existence free world defense forces and facilities far greater than those which we, by our unaided efforts, could have raised and maintained from our own resources without a crushing burden of taxation on our people. In their economic aspects, our programs have made significant advances toward the solution of many problems of the free world. Without this assistance many other nations, beyond doubt, if existing at all, would exist today only in the grip of chaos. Moreover, we ourselves are more secure, more prosperous, better fitted to go forward in the common enterprise of freedom than ever before.

Significant testimony to the success of our mutual security programs appears in the new turns and developments of Soviet policy. Aggression through force appears to have been put aside, at least temporarily, and the Communists are now making trade approaches to many nations of the free world.

The Soviet maneuver, which is still developing, includes offers of bilateral trade arrangements which may involve provision of arms and capital goods as well as technical assistance. Had we any reason to believe that the Soviet leaders had abandoned their sinister objectives, and now shared our own high purpose of helping other nations to develop freedom and independence, we would welcome the new Soviet program, for it appears to have aspects of normal trade expansion and business competition. Its danger for us and for other free nations, however, lies in the traditional Soviet objectives and in the entanglements to which acceptance of their offers may lead.

Even while we welcome respite from the Soviet policy of threat and violence, we must take careful stock of what still remains of it. The vast Soviet military establishment has not been scrapped. On the contrary, the Soviets and their Communist allies are increasing the strength and effectiveness of their armed forces and are providing them with equipment of the most modern design. The threat implicit in this huge aggregation of military power still casts an ominous shadow over the world. There is nothing here to warrant a slackening of our efforts to strengthen the common defense of the free world.

In its new departures in foreign policy, we see that the Soviet Union continues in its familiar pattern of ceaseless probing for opportunities to exploit political and economic weaknesses. We cannot view otherwise the arms traffic in areas where tensions are high and the peace is in danger. We cannot view otherwise the extension of credits hand in hand with exploitation of ancient animosities and new hatreds in a world already overburdened with them.

We must therefore assume that Soviet expansionism has merely taken on a somewhat different guise and that its fundamental objective is still to disrupt and in the end to dominate the free nations. With Soviet leaders openly proclaiming their world aim, it would be folly for us and our friends to relax our collective efforts toward stability and security.

Needless to say, we do not intend to permit specific Soviet moves to control our activities. Our mutual security program, conceived in the common interests of the free nations, must go ahead affirmatively along tested lines to meet the common need. Where changes now give promise of making the program more responsive to the need and more effective, I am recommending changes.

The authorizations and appropriations I am recommending for Fiscal Year 1957 are designed to carry forward the program toward the goal we seek.

I recommend that the Congress authorize appropriations of $4,672,475,000 in accordance with the schedule attached. In a separate letter to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, I am requesting the appropriation of $4,859,975,000 for the same fiscal year to cover these recommended authorizations together with authorizations granted but not fully used in prior years. Certain aspects of this program require special attention.

CONTINUITY AND FLEXIBILITY

We should be able to assure the nations of the free world that we will continue to participate in particular non-military projects and enterprises which will take a number of years to complete. Such assurance from us will help these nations to mobilize their own funds for projects which will contribute to an important degree to their economic strength, to enlist public and private loans and investment, and to plan ahead intelligently. It will be difficult for these nations to organize such projects unless Mutual Security Program support can be relied on for more than a single year.

I request authority of the Congress to make commitments up to ten years in length to assist less developed countries in long term projects important to their development. Funds to fulfill such commitments would come from appropriations for non-military mutual security, and would not exceed an aggregate of $100 million in any year.

The Mutual Security Program, in a world in which events move with great rapidity, requires that flexible authority exist for the use of funds made available by the Congress. Section 401 of the Mutual Security Act of 1954, as amended, provides such flexibility with respect to the funds appropriated, or transferred, for use pursuant to that section. It provides a valuable means of meeting numerous unforeseeable requirements for assistance without the necessity for postponing or reducing other urgently needed programs.

A year ago the Congress appropriated a Special Presidential Fund of $100 million to be used under section 401. For Fiscal Year 1957, I request the authorization of an appropriation of a further $100 million for this Special Fund. I also ask that the authority of the President to transfer other mutual security funds for use under the provisions of section 401 be increased. With respect to at least $100 million in this Special Fund, I urge that the maximum degree of flexibility be authorized for its expenditure whenever the President determines that the use of sums in this manner is important to the security of the United States.

The Middle East and Africa are areas in which it is especially important to build new strength friendly to us. There is need for an adequate fund which can be used to assist in meeting special economic problems that may arise in those regions. The United States must be in a position to act promptly to help the governments in this area in their efforts to find solutions for economic and social problems. I therefore recommend creation of a special fund of $100 million to be available for use in any part of the Middle East or Africa for non-military Mutual Security programs which will advance the cause of free world security and economic strength.

In 1955, the President's Fund for Asian Economic Development was established. The sum of $100 million was then appropriated for it and authorization was given for the appropriation of a further $100 million. It is now desirable that the whole of the funds authorized be made available, and I shall request the appropriation of the remaining $100 million.

ADVANCED WEAPONS SYSTEMS

I recommend that about $530 million be made available to enable the Department of Defense to begin a program of aiding our allies in developing an even more effective defense based on an improved and better coordinated early warning and communications system and utilizing advanced weapons systems, including missiles, now being procured for our troops.

These advanced weapons, which are purely defensive in character, pose no threat to any nation which does not initiate aggression. They are designed to give warning of, and repel, such aggression--and by their potential effectiveness to deter it.

The sum of $195 million has been included initially for NATO countries in the Fiscal Year 1957 Program. The eventual distribution of the balance of the advanced weapons included in the 1957 program will be made on the basis of later judgment as to their most effective employment world-wide.

Our defense methods cannot be static in view of the constant growth of the military potential of the Communists. We and our allies must keep our defenses adequate to meet new methods of attack. Because of the rapidity of scientific advances, it is likely that the content of this advanced weapons program will be modified from time to time.

EUROPE

The program for the NATO countries of Europe (excluding Greece and Turkey ) is primarily one of military assistance. This includes the advanced weapons I have mentioned. Although our allies have made great progress in building up their defense forces, military grant assistance is still necessary in most countries to assist them in maintaining equipment and replacing materiel lost by attrition. No economic assistance is proposed for any European country in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A small amount of technical exchange assistance is proposed.

Continued economic support is required for Berlin, and military and economic support for Spain and Yugoslavia.

MIDDLE EAST, AFRICA AND ASIA

In Asia and the Middle East, serious risk of aggression still exists. The program recommends aggregate military assistance of approximately $1,640 million for countries in these regions which must maintain substantial forces in the field to resist possible attacks. The military assistance which we propose will support the objectives of various mutual defense pacts, including SEATO, to which the United States is a party.

In these areas, the problems of building security are economic as well as military. Many of the nations in the area do not now have the resources required for a minimum rate of economic growth. They are striving to create the standards of living under which their economics can develop. This is a long-term process, in which their own efforts will play the major part, but in which our help can be crucial.

The program, accordingly, proposes economic help to those of our allies whose own resources cannot support their essential defense effort. This help is designed, as in former years, in part to assist projects of a non-military character which further defense activities, in part to help build internal resources and economic stability, and in part to contribute to the recipient's programs of economic development.

Provision is also made for economic assistance to nations in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia which receive no military assistance, where such economic assistance will contribute to their economic strength and thus to their ability to retain their independence. This program is of the utmost importance to the security of the free world.

The program for Fiscal Year 1957 also provides for continuing our technical cooperation and assistance in less developed countries.

LATIN AMERICA

We propose to strengthen further the friendly relationships which exist with our sister republics to the south. I recommend that we continue to encourage by technical assistance the programs, initiated by Latin American nations, to make better use of their own resources. We should also continue our participation in the technical assistance activities of the Organization of American States.

In special circumstances, when loans from the Export-Import Bank and the World Bank are not available to countries facing critical situations, the Mutual Security Program has assisted in meeting temporary economic problems, as in the case of two countries where it is proposed that such assistance be continued in the next fiscal year.

Military assistance in Latin America should be continued where needed in order to provide standardized equipment, maintenance of equipment already furnished, and training in the use of such equipment.

UNITED NATIONS AND OTHER SPECIAL PROGRAMS

The United States should continue its support of the United Nations Expanded Technical Assistance Program, the United Nations Children's Fund, and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency which provides relief and rehabilitation of the Arab Refugees from Palestine.

Provision is also made for continuing our support of the program of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the work of the Intergovernmental Committee for European Migration. Authorizations for continuing our own government's program for care and resettlement of escapees from Communism, and our program of paying the ocean freight costs of shipment both of relief supplies donated to our voluntary relief agencies and of surplus agricultural commodities, are also recommended.

SIZE OF THE PROGRAM

The request for military assistance authorization in fiscal year 1957 is substantially larger than the requests and appropriations for this purpose for the past two years. The lower level of appropriations for Fiscal Years 1955 and 1956 will, by the end of the current fiscal year, have brought about reduction in unexpended balances over the two-year period by approximately $2 ½ billion to $3 billion. Now, however, in order to maintain the flow of military assistance in 1958 and 1959 an increase in the appropriation for Fiscal Year 1957 is required.

A substantial period of "lead" time is required to translate appropriated funds into actual payment for, and deliveries of, nearly all items of military equipment. This year, for the first time, more than $500 million are included in the military assistance program for advanced weapons. These weapons, because of their complexity, have even longer lead times.

On the economic side of the program, appropriations for the last two years have been approximately at the same rate as expenditures. The amounts requested this year for economic assistance are larger principally because of the new fund proposed for the Middle East and Africa and because of heavier emphasis on programs in Asia.

OTHER ASPECTS OF THE PROGRAM

The Mutual Security Program for Fiscal Year 1957 proposes continued procurement within the United States of surplus agricultural commodities for use abroad. In addition, large amounts of such commodities are moving abroad under the Agricultural Trade Development and Assistance Act for the mutual benefit of this and other countries. This latter effort has been considered in the development of the 1957 Mutual Security Program requirements, and every effort is being made to coordinate the two programs.

In the request for appropriations to carry out the Fiscal Year 1957 program, I am urging that Congress permit greater flexibility in the obligation of appropriations, in order that there may be more thorough planning of expenditures and more time allowed for necessary negotiation of contracts with suppliers and of arrangements with other nations.

CONCLUSION

The Mutual Security Program is vitally important to our people. Its cost is not disproportionate to our Nation's resources and to our national income. That cost is a low price to pay for the security and vastly greater chances for world peace which the program provides.

The Mutual Security Program is an indispensable part of our national effort to meet affirmatively the challenge of all the forces which threaten the independence of the Free World and to overcome the conditions which make peace insecure and progress difficult.

DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER