February 27, 1970
Page 5265
THE RELATIONSHIP OF FUTURE FOREIGN ASSISTANCE PROGRAMS, THE NATIONAL INTEREST, AND THE NEEDS OF DEVELOPING NATIONS – AN ADDRESS BY SENATOR EDMUND S. MUSKIE
Mr. EAGLETON. Mr. President, this past Wednesday, at a luncheon meeting of the International Development Conference in Washington, the Senator from Maine (Mr. MUSKIE) delivered a thoughtful as well as thought-provoking address on foreign aid. He has pointedly raised the urgent matter of restructuring our foreign assistance programs and simultaneously restructuring the political base for them. So that all Senators may have an opportunity to read it, I ask unanimous consent that Senator MUSKIE's address be printed in the RECORD.
There being no objection, the address was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
The Challenge of the 1970's – a New Look at Foreign Assistance
(Remarks by Senator EDMUND S. MUSKIE, of Maine, at a luncheon meeting of the International Development Conference, Washington, D.C., February 25, 1970)
If I had believed the headlines and the public opinion polls, I would have called my talk: "Epitaph for a Lost Cause." The subject of foreign aid is not popular, and its prognosis is not favorable. My presence here may be more a testimony to the unsinkable optimism of an elected Maine Democrat than an indicator of my political judgment.
But, to paraphrase Mark Twain: Rumors of the death of foreign aid are greatly exaggerated, and calls for its end, or its decline, are greatly misguided.
I share the conviction of the young people who are involved in the International Development Conference: "Our aim must be to change international attitudes so as to make it impossible for our political leaders to continue to neglect, and often to aggravate, the obscene inequities that disfigure our world."
The time has come, friends of development aid, not to bury that aid, not to praise its past accomplishments, but to commit ourselves to a new understanding of its place in our world and a determination to use it effectively. We must use it to give new life and hope to those who are the victims of those "obscene inequities."
To do that, we need the energy, and the enthusiasm which move the young people who have joined in this conference. We need to reinforce that energy and enthusiasm with the perspective of those who know where we have been, what has worked and what hasn't, and why we went there in the first place.
In looking backward, we can derive some satisfaction from what has been achieved. Foreign aid, properly speaking, began with the Marshall Plan, a success which had everything working for it.
After two world wars, Americans believed that Europe was worth sacrifices in peacetime, too. The dramatic results were due in part to the fact that aid was used, not to build, but to reconstruct previously developed economies. In a sense the early 1950's, with their stress and achievement, are a heroic period in the history of foreign aid, but it is one to which we cannot return.
By the mid-1950's, the Marshall Plan had proved its worth. Europe for the moment seemed to have been made safe for the West and freedom. The succeeding decade presented new challenges to respond to development needs on a broader scale. The newly independent nations of the world needed all the assistance they could get. And we suspected that if we did not help, others might act in our place.
As the front between the two blocs became stabilized in Europe, each side sought to protect or advance its interests in Africa and Asia.
Today, however, I think many would agree that the relationship between foreign assistance and the national interests of the donor powers is not as direct as it once appeared. No nation since World War II has lost its sovereignty because of Communist foreign aid.
That fact has cut some of the urgency of the security arguments for foreign aid. At the same time other supports were weakening, too.
There have always been those profoundly critical of foreign aid. In recent years, they have been joined by those sunshine supporters of aid who – like some university alumni – have come to doubt whether the goals of the fund drive would ever be met. Proponents of foreign aid have traditionally pointed out how it benefits us by improving our balance of payments and opening foreign markets to our products. I strongly favor expanding our trade and eliminating the deficit in our balance of payments. But as a practical matter, I feel that many American businessmen, in contemplating disturbed political and commercial conditions abroad, see them as promising more uncertainty than profit.
One of the most important causes of the decline in support for development aid has been the war in Vietnam. That conflict has had a profound effect on ideas Americans hold about themselves and the world beyond their shores. For half a decade, the United States has pursued a stated policy of trying to build a stable society in a single nation in Southeast Asia. The effort was unprecedented and because its results have been tied up in the confusion of the war, many have become discouraged at the apparent ineffectiveness of our developmental tools.
This conclusion is unfair to our aid program in Vietnam. At no time have we pushed the cause of social reforms as vigorously as we pushed the war effort. As a consequence, foreign assistance programs had little or no chance to prove themselves. They became victims of the disillusionment which has accompanied our Vietnam experience.
Vietnam has also intensified strains in the social and economic fabric of our own society. Americans became more aware of their own society's faults. Many critics consider it presumptuous that we should tell others what their purposes should be and how to achieve them.
Others simply decided that we must get on, as a matter of first priority, with reform in the United States. These feelings, while not in themselves hostile to foreign aid, detracted public attention from it, and weakened the defense of foreign assistance programs which must be made each year.
Domestic reform is imperative. It needs to have a higher priority than ABM's, SST's, and other disrupters of society and the environment. But we cannot achieve reform at home if we neglect the needs of the poor abroad. We live, in McLuhan's phrase in a "global village." It is time our policies reflected that fact.
Let us look for a moment now at the prospects for social and economic development in the less advantaged portions of the world.
In recent years the developing countries have had some success in generating material growth.
Some have been doing better than did the industrial nations in their comparative period of economic expansion. These efforts, however, often have yielded unforeseen or undesirable side-effects. With our interest in environmental contamination we are conscious of the dangers of heedless development. The Aswan Dam, despite its great contributions to productivity in Egypt, may reduce the organic fertility of the Nile Delta, curtail off-shore fisheries, lead to the spread of water-borne disease, and eventually lose its value through silting of the reservoir.
Even the new miracle crops of the "Green Revolution," which are now feeding so many scores of millions, increase the risk of crop failure on a large scale by expanding the range of agricultural monocultures.
But the basic issue in growth policies is not contamination of the physical environment. The basic issue is the growing demand of rising populations which threatens to strain or exceed the exploitable resources. The gap between the per capita incomes of developed and under- developed nations promises to increase, not diminish.
What will social conditions be aboard "Troopship Earth" as new millions pile on board dally, and the Plimsoll Line disappears from sight? Barbara Ward Jackson has written eloquently about the sprawling cities in the developing world where millions subsist with all the horrors and none of the advantages of urban life. Economically speaking, a shift in populations is not necessarily bad.
In some areas of Asia the number of farmers may exceed the point of diminishing returns. A population shift to the cities may by itself, yield an increase in agricultural production. But the social environment in which the displaced populations live, suggests a "culture eutrophication" and the spread of "Lake Erie" conditions in the portions of society that are affected.
Studies made of animal populations under stress show that crowding disrupts important social functions and worsens all forms of social pathology found in a group. If populations continue to rise – with an accompanying increase in stress – animals have been known to die off in great numbers simply because of a vulnerability to their social setting.
This data suggests that man – in both the developed and the under-developed world – should not consider himself as separate from and unconnected with the natural world he inhabits. The ecological principles which concern the conservationists affect human society and must be applied in our domestic and foreign policies.
We have seen that foreign assistance raises complex and difficult issues. Without it, however, the prospects for the social and economic progress of the under-developed nations are at best gloomy and uncertain.
The developed countries must make a maximum effort to help others win the battle for development, because their own interests – and in a sense their own survival – depend upon the result.
No long-term prospects for mankind are more frightening than that of the world becoming divided into two camps, of which one is non-black, non-young, and non-poor.
David Potter suggests that our democratic system is one of the major by-products of our abundance, and is workable largely because of the measure of our abundance. Democracy – with its promises of equality must also offer opportunity.
A world where half the population eats while the other half starves is a world where the values of American and Western civilization will be warped or destroyed.
Our traditions and our past security have given us a belief that our way of life will triumph in the end. During World War II, it was said that even if the Axis won the war, democracy could survive as long as the liberal tradition continued to function in some part of the world. I do not believe, however, that the democracies could survive anywhere in the kind of world I have been describing.
The nations of the West must realize that they face a more serious threat than any they have previously confronted. The developed nations must join the developing countries in an alliance against human misery and degradation of the environment. And the well-being of the individual cannot be defined in purely physical terms. Institutions must be developed to provide a means of action and self-expression to people who are becoming politically more self-conscious everywhere.
I will not speak at length on what the developed countries must do to assist their poorer neighbors. I have read with interest the President's statement on foreign assistance in his recent report on the foreign affairs of the nation. The report would have been improved if it had spoken specifically about goals toward which our efforts should proceed.
I hope that the President's Task Force on Aid, headed by Rudolph Peterson, will define
our goals. Without them, it is impossible to provide direction to our efforts or to know whether we are succeeding or failing.
In terms of its commitment of resources, the United States should at least maintain a level of aid proportionate to that of other developed nations. The United States is not only the richest nation in the world; it has a productive capacity approximately equal to that of all the other industrial nations in the free world combined.
Both in relative and absolute terms, however, our assistance has been dwindling. Seven years ago we provided about $3.6 billion in foreign aid, which was roughly six tenths of one percent of our GNP. In 1970 our aid contribution will be about $3 billion, or only three-tenths of one percent in a much richer economy. In 1969, for the first time other developed countries provided more assistance to the developing world on equal or better terms than we did. In 1970, their contributions will probably exceed ours by $700 million, and will rise to still higher levels in 1971 and 1972.
I am encouraged by this awareness of the need for development aid in other countries, but we should not now tire of the game just when fresh players are joining our side.
I favor the Pearson recommendation for strengthening the international aid framework to coordinate and review the efforts of both donors and recipients. I also support the Pearson recommendation that all donors raise their contribution to multilateral activities to 20 percent of their total aid expenditures. This means that financial resources for multilateral institutions must be substantially increased so that they can play a more important role, and so they can exercise leadership in those consortia designed to coordinate bilateral programs.
We cannot and should not cancel our bilateral programs. But they must be increased and coordinated with multilateral projects if they are to make a maximum contribution to the healthy growth of developing nations.
A global development effort, carried out within a stronger international framework, underscores the need to differentiate between aid for development and national security assistance.
This distinction should be made in both the legislation and the administration of our economic assistance. The old argument that putting the two together boosts the chances for public support no longer holds water.
Furthermore, we need to bring together in one place the guidance for our participation in development aid. Guidance to the World Bank and the Regional Financial Institutions comes primarily from one agency, policy guidelines to the UN agencies from another, our bilateral programs receive their guidance from still another source. If the United States is to provide effective leadership in this international effort – involving more than a dozen industrial nations, numerous international agencies, and scores of developing countries – we need to think and speak far more with one voice than before.
In addition, I should stress that economic development requires sustained effort. We cannot put our own resources to most efficient use if we are unable to ensure continuity in our support. This means that we must make major improvements in our present system which requires not only an annual appropriation, but – until this year – that the entire programs be re-authorized annually
At the least, I believe there should be a four-year authorization of the program development assistance. The security programs, such as military and supporting assistance, which are not part of such long- range programs, could be authorized separately and annually. Consideration should be given to the appropriation of development funds on a longer range basis, possibly two-year term, paralleling the life of each Congress. Congressional committees, moreover, should use their freedom from the annual funding cycle to make in-depth studies of development operations in order to provide better policy guidance.
Some will ask if the United States can afford the costs of increased foreign aid? I think the time has come to face up to the realities of difficult choices, and to admit there are less important programs that we cannot afford. A proper definition of our national priorities suggests that the effort must be made.
The issues involved are not only those of development, but involve the nature of civilized man, and the survival of the democratic process. In the longer run, they may concern the survival of man himself.
I would be happy if the nations of the Communist bloc would – in a spirit of good will – join us in this great developmental effort.
I have no illusions that mankind will leap forward automatically to this latest call for concern with humanity. With a half century of violence and unrest behind us, I suspect that mankind's hearing has seldom been so accustomed to cries of alarm, anguish, and indignation. The language of humane concern labors and strains to surpass the drum beat of the arms race.
Nevertheless, I think there are some causes for hope in the contemporary world. Rich and poor nations alike seem to be developing a feeling for the interdependence of men and nations. They seem to be awakening to the realization that we on earth are on a small and fragile planet. How we react to that fact will determine whether that planet becomes a community or a prison of violence and fear.
Our closing note should not be one of optimism or pessimism but firm resolve. We cannot be certain of the results of our labors. They may succeed or they may fail. But of this we can be sure: If we do not labor – if we do not persevere – mankind will fail to save itself in the midst of monstrous divisions and the growing horror of a world turned against itself.