<--PREV Doc #75  |  Memorial Commission Home Page  |  Second Term Table of Contents  |  Presidential Papers Home Page  |  Doc#  |  NEXT--> Doc #77 Document #76; March 17, 1957 To Clarence Belden Randall Series: EM, AWF, Administration Series ; Category: Memorandum The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, Volume XVIII - The Presidency: Keeping the Peace Part I: A New Beginning, Old Problems; January 1957 to May 1957 Chapter 1: The Mideast and the Eisenhower Doctrine   With respect to specific actions of some immediate importance.1 a. That relating to inclusion of mil. aid in our own mil. budget--and placing ICA inside State.2 We've been over this every year since my first Inauguration. . .3 I have the feeling that whatever decision is reached should not be implemented this year. We should present the case to Congress under present adm organization with statement that this will again be analyzed and report made to Congress at next Session. (If Congress insists on action this year, I'm sure we can by cooperation reach some satisfactory answers. I'm not too impressed by details of org. as panaceas for serious ills--if any.) b. With respect to 2 year authorizations. No use! [(]We've tried before--and I think the best we can get is continuation of Emergency or contingency funds.)4 c. With respect 6,7,8, and 11.5 I think we can probably come somewhat closer than we have to meeting Fairless conclusions, but the progress will be only gradual. I realize that some (head of I.C.A.) believe in "soft" loans, even to Korea.6 I don't say they are entirely out the window, but in that type of case have little, if any, application. 1 This handwritten memorandum from Eisenhower to Randall was an addendum to the President’s letter regarding the Fairless Committee report (no. 75; see also State, Foreign Relations, 1955 - 1957, vol. X, Foreign Aid and Economic Defense Policy, p. 175). 2 The Fairless Committee had recommended that: "For the administration of economic activities, the International Cooperation Administration (ICA) should be integrated into the Department of State, and merged with the existing economic activities within the Department, as soon as practicable (see Report to the President by the President's Citizen Advisors on the Mutual Security Program, March 1, 1957, AWF/A, Mutual Aid 1957). Eisenhower had established the ICA (May 9, 1955) as a semiautonomous agency associated with the Department of State. For background see Galambos and van Ee, The Middle Way, nos. 1402 and 1849; Kaufman, Trade and Aid, p. 52; and Congressional Quarterly Almanac, vol. XI, 1955, p. 304. The Fairless Committee had also recommended that there should be "a separation between economic and military contributions to the collective security program." Funding for the so-called "military assistance" and "defense support" portions of the mutual security program should be included as a separate title within the regular Defense Department budget. The Committee further recommended that nonmilitary assistance--to be justified and administered by the Department of State--should be submitted separately and labeled as economic assistance. The Council on Foreign Economic Policy recommended support of this position "with the understanding that the military portion of defense support would be charged to the Department of Defense budget but would be administered by ICA" (State, Foreign Relations, 1955 - 1957, vol. X, Foreign Aid and Economic Defense Policy, p. 163). 3 The ellipsis is in Eisenhower’s document. 4 The Fairless Committee had recommended that "both the military and economic assistance programs be presented to each Congress for approval rather than to each session of each Congress." 5 Fairless Committee recommendations 6, 7, 8, and 11 concerned the conditions for making loans and grants. In general, the Committee sought to tighten the conditions under which the United States made loans. Recommendations were made to end loans repayable in inconvertible currencies and loans in situations where there was "grave doubt of the ability of the borrower to repay." Grants should be made only to those countries which had joined in the collective security system, and "where it is clearly in the national interest to do so." 6 John Baker Hollister, Director of the ICA since 1955, had taken a position in support of the Fairless Committee's recommendation that in certain cases the United States should make "soft dollar loans" on more "liberal terms than those of the established public banks with respect to interest rates and periods of repayment." For developments see no. 109. Bibliographic reference to this document: Eisenhower, Dwight D. Memorandum To Clarence Belden Randall, 17 March 1957. In The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, ed. L. Galambos and D. van Ee, doc. 76. World Wide Web facsimile by The Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial Commission of the print edition; Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996, http://www.eisenhowermemorial.org/presidential-papers/second-term/documents/76.cfm <--PREV Doc #75  |  Memorial Commission Home Page  |  Second Term Table of Contents  |  Presidential Papers Home Page  |  Doc#  |  NEXT--> Doc #77

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