Lyndon B. Johnson photo

Special Message to the Congress on Foreign Aid.

March 19, 1964

To the Congress of the United States:

The most important ingredient in the development of a nation is neither the amount nor the nature of foreign assistance. It is the will and commitment of the government and people directly involved.

To those nations which do commit themselves to progress under freedom, help from us and from others can provide the margin of difference between failure and success.

This is the heart of the matter.

The proposals contained in this message express our self-interest at the same time that they proclaim our national ideals.

We will be laying up a harvest of woe for us and our children if we shrink from the task of grappling in the world community with poverty and ignorance.

These are the grim recruiting sergeants of Communism.

They flourish wherever we falter. If we default on our obligations, Communism will expand its ambitions.

That is the stern equation which dominates our age, and from which there can be no escape in logic or in honor.

NO WASTE, NO RETREAT

It is against our national interest to tolerate waste or inefficiency or extravagance in any of these programs. But it is equally repugnant to our national interest to retreat from our obligations and commitments while freedom remains under siege.

We recognize that the United States cannot and should not sustain the burden of these programs alone.

Other nations are needed in this enterprise of mutual help. Encouraging signs exist that the process of sharing the burden is steadily growing.

The best way for the United States to stimulate this growth and to broaden this partnership in freedom is to make our own example an incentive to our friends and allies.

We need the assurance of stability and progress in a world restless with many dangers and anxieties.

PRUDENT AND RESPONSIBLE PROGRAMS

In this program we do not seek to cover the whole world. Aid on a world-wide scale is no part of our purpose.

We seek instead, through prudent and responsible programs, to help carefully selected countries whose survival in freedom is essential-and whose collapse would bring new opportunities for Communist expansion.

There are no easy victories in this campaign. But there can be sudden disasters. We cannot ask for a reprieve from responsibility while freedom is in danger. The vital interests of the United States require us to stay in the battle. We dare not desert.

Economic and military assistance, used at the right time and in the right way, can provide indispensable help to our foreign policy in enabling the United States to influence events instead of merely reacting to them. By committing a small part of our resources before crises actually occur, we reduce the danger and frequency of those crises.

Our foresight becomes a shield against misfortune.

The recommendations contained in this program for fiscal year 1965 are designed to move the aid-program in that direction.

They reflect views and experience of the Congress, of the Executive Branch and of informed private citizens.

FIVE FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTS FOR A SUCCESSFUL PROGRAM

FIRST: The request for funds must be realistic.

For economic assistance, new authorizations of $917 Million for Fiscal 1965 are recommended. Specifically, I recommend $335 Million for Supporting Assistance, $225 Million for Technical Cooperation, $134 Million for Contributions to International Organizations, $150 Million for the President's Contingency Fund, and $73 Million for Administrative and Miscellaneous Expenses.

For military assistance, I recommend that the Congress provide a continuing authorization, subject to an annual review of each year's proposals by the authorizing committees in both houses.

For fiscal 1965, I recommend no additional authorizations for the Alliance for Progress or for development lending assistance in Asia or Africa. Existing authorizations for these programs are adequate.

The appropriations recommended for fiscal 1965 total $1 Billion for military assistance and $2.4 Billion for economic assistance.

In fiscal 1964, the initial request was $4.9 Billion, later reduced to $4.5 Billion.

This fiscal year, the request of $3.4 Billion is $1.1 Billion less than last year's request, although about the same as was available last year, taking into consideration the unexpended balance from the year before.

Moreover, more than 80 % of aid funds will be spent in the U.S. The impact of the program on our balance of payments will be less than ever before.

INSURANCE TO AVOID COMMITTING AMERICAN

MEN TO WAR

These requests reflect a determination to continue to improve the aid program both in concept and administration. The overall request represents a great deal of money-but it is an amount which we should, in all prudence, provide to serve essential United States interests and commitments throughout the world.

More than one million American men in uniform are now stationed outside the United States. As insurance to avoid involving them and the nation in a major conflict, we propose to spend through aid programs less than 4 cents out of every tax dollar.

If there is any alternative insurance against war, it might be found in an increase in the defense budget. But that would require not only many times more than $3.4 Billion, for a military budget which already takes more than 5° cents out of every tax dollar, but also a several-fold increase in our own military manpower.

The foreign assistance requested will provide

--the crucial assistance we have promised the people of Latin America who are committed to programs of economic and social progress;

--continued economic development in India, Pakistan and Turkey under the major international aid-consortia to which we are a party;

--the United States share of voluntary contributions to the United Nations technical cooperation programs and to such special international programs as the work of the United Nations Children's Fund, and the development of the Indus Basin;

--funds to meet our commitments to the freedom of the people of South Vietnam, Korea, and for the other obligations we have undertaken in Asia and Africa.

SECOND: The funds I am requesting will be concentrated where they will produce the best results, and speed the transition from United States assistance to self-support wherever possible.

Two-thirds of the proposed military assistance will go to 11 nations along the periphery of the Sino-Soviet bloc, from Greece and Turkey through Thailand and Vietnam to the Republic of China and Korea. These funds are a key to the maintenance of over 3.5 million men under arms, raised and supported in large measure by the countries receiving the assistance.

The need for supporting assistance-funds used primarily in countries facing defense or security emergencies--will continue to be reduced. Fourteen countries which received supporting assistance three years ago will receive none in fiscal year 1965.

Four-fifths of the present request will go to four countries: Korea, Vietnam, Laos and Jordan.

Two-thirds of the development lending proposed for fiscal 1965 (including Alliance for Progress lending) will be concentrated in six countries: Chile, Colombia, Nigeria, Turkey, Pakistan, and India.

Funds for educational and technical cooperation-to help start schools, health centers, agricultural experiment stations, credit services and dozens of other institutions--are not concentrated in a few countries. But they will be used for selected projects to raise the ability of less fortunate peoples to meet their own needs. To carry out these projects we are seeking the best personnel available in the United States--in private agencies, in universities, in state and local governments, and throughout the federal government.

Wherever possible, we will speed up the transition from reliance on aid to self-support.

In 17 nations, the transition has been completed and economic aid has ended. Fourteen countries are approaching the 'point where soft economic loans and grants will no longer be needed. New funds for military equipment grants are being requested for seven fewer countries for fiscal 1965 than for the present year.

THIRD: We must do more to utilize private initiative in the United States--and in the developing countries--to promote economic development abroad.

During the past year:

--the first new houses financed by U.S. private funds protected by AID guarantees were completed in Lima, Peru.

--the first rural electrification surveys, conducted by the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association under contract to AID, were completed and the first rural electrification loan--in Nicaragua--was approved.

--the first arrangement linking the public and private resources of one of our States to a developing country was established, between California and Chile.

This effort must be expanded.

Accordingly, we are encouraging the establishment of an Executive Service Corps. It will provide American businessmen with an opportunity to furnish, on request, technical and managerial advice to businessmen in developing countries.

During the present year, the possibilities for mobilizing increased private resources for the development task will be developed by the Advisory Committee on Private Enterprise in Foreign Aid established under the Foreign Assistance Act of 1963.

In this connection, two specific legislative steps are recommended:

One, legislation to provide a special tax credit for private investment by U.S. businessmen in less-developed countries.

Two, additional authority for a final installment of the pilot program of guaranteeing private U.S. housing investments in Latin America.

FOURTH: We will continue to seek greater international participation in aid.

Other free world industrial countries have increased their aid commitments since the early 1950's. There are indications that further increases are in store. Canada recently announced that it expects to increase its aid expenditures by 50% next year. A 1963 British White Paper and a French official report published in January 1964 point in the same direction. Other nations have reduced interest rates and extended maturities on loans to developing countries.

Of major importance in this effort are the operations of the International Development Association. Under the agreement for replenishing the resources of this Association, which is now before the Congress for approval, other countries will put up more than $1.40 for every dollar the U.S. provides to finance on easy terms development projects certified as sound by the World Bank-projects which the developing countries could not afford to pay for on regular commercial terms. This is international sharing in the aid effort at its best. For to the extent we furnish funds to IDA, and they are augmented by the contributions of others, the needs of developing countries are met, thus reducing the amounts required for our own bilateral aid programs.

Under the program before you the U.S. would be authorized to contribute $312 million over a three year period. Against this other countries have pledged $438 million which will be lost in the absence of the U.S. contribution. Action is needed now so that the Association may continue to undertake new projects even though the first appropriation will not be required until FY 1966.

I urge the Congress to authorize U.S. participation in this continued IDA subscription.

FIFTH: Let us insist on steadily increasing efficiency in assistance operations.

After careful study, I have decided to continue the basic organization of aid operations, established after intensive review in 1961. Economic assistance operations will continue to be centered in the Agency for International Development, military assistance operations in the Department of Defense. Both will be subject to firm foreign policy guidance from the Secretary of State.

STEPS TO INCREASE EFFICIENCY OF AID

One officer, Assistant Secretary of State Mann, has been assigned firm policy control over all aspects of our activities in Latin America.

Full support will be given to the newly-created Inter-American Alliance for Progress Committee which is designed to strengthen the aspect of partnership in the Alliance.

The AID Administrator has instructions to embark on a major program to improve the quality of his staff--and to reduce the total number of AID employees by 1,200 by the end of fiscal year 1965.

The AID Administrator has been directed to continue to consolidate AID Missions with U.S. Embassies and, wherever possible, to eliminate altogether separate AID field missions.

The Secretary of Defense has been directed to continue to make substantial reductions in the number of personnel assigned to Military Assistance Groups and Missions.

In this connection, I recommend two specific legislative steps:

One, legislation to provide the AID Administrator with authority to terminate a limited number of supervisory and policy making employees notwithstanding other provisions of law, and to extend the existing Foreign Service "selection out" authority to other personnel.

This is essential if the Administrator is to carry out my desire--and that of the Congress-that he improve the quality of the AID staff, and at the same time, reduce its total size.

Two, legislation to permit outstanding United States representation on the Inter-American Alliance for Progress Committee under the leadership of Ambassador Teodoro

MOSCOSO.

Finally, I am appointing a general advisory committee, as suggested by Senator Cooper and others, on foreign economic and military assistance problems. It will be composed of distinguished private citizens with varied backgrounds and will serve as a continuing source of counsel to me. In addition to its general responsibility the Committee will examine aid programs in individual countries. These reviews will be made by members of the advisory committee, augmented as necessary by additional persons. I would hope that at least four or five country reviews, including two or three in Latin America, will be completed in the present year.

A PROGRAM TO STRENGTHEN THE FAMILY OF

THE FREE

I am convinced this program will enable the United States to live in a turbulent world with a greater measure of safety and of honor.

There is in our heart the larger and nobler hope of strengthening the family of the free, quite apart from our duty to disappoint the evil designs of the enemies of freedom.

We wish to build a world in which the weak can walk without fear and in which even the smallest nation can work out its own destiny without the danger of violence and aggression.

This program, based on the principle of mutual help, can make an essential contribution to these purposes and objectives which have guided our nation across the difficulties of these dangerous years.

I recommend this program to the judgment and the conscience off the Congress in the belief that it will enlarge the strength of the Free World--

--aid in frustrating the ambitions of Communist imperialism,

--reduce the hazards of widespread conflict, and

--support the moral commitment of free men everywhere to work for a just and peaceful world.

LYNDON B. JOHNSON

Lyndon B. Johnson, Special Message to the Congress on Foreign Aid. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/239584

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