Washington-U.S.A.
DUSCHA, JULIUS
WASHINGTON-U.S.A. By Julius Duscha President Returns to Face Election-Year Congress DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER'S trip to Asia was one of his greatest personal triumphs since he took over the White...
...with its emphasis on how to do things on a farm...
...Debatable as this interpretation may be, its acceptance by most of the Congressional leaders means that the Democratic-controlled Senate and House will continue to try to focus voter attention on domestic rather than foreign issues in the coming session...
...The President is now back in the U.S., where he finds the same problems confronting him that were here when he left on his 11-nation, 22,000-mile journey...
...Nevertheless, the United States and the President have benefited from the trip...
...And he seems to have brought back with him a haunting picture of poverty...
...In the last decade, Congress has let only one election year go by without improving the Social Security program...
...So it seems the outlook for the 1960 session of Congress is no more pleasing to the Democrats than is the prospect that the United States will continue to let affairs in the underdeveloped nations drift along without the assistance that this country could give...
...But will the United States expand its foreign aid programs enough to brighten this picture...
...The temper of Congress in 1960 will be more political than realistic, however...
...In any event, reports coming out of the Budget Bureau give no sign of a speedup in efforts to close the gap between Soviet space achievements and American hopes...
...It is indeed curious that the great issues of our time apparently will figure little in political discussions either on Capitol Hill or in the campaigns of the many Presidential aspirants...
...Eisenhower appears to have got a much better understanding of the political as well as the economic problems of the new nations of the world...
...Senate Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson (D.-Tex...
...And every advocate of foreign aid knows what appropriations are usually reduced first by an economy-minded, election-year Congress...
...As such, they are unlikely to arouse the interest of the electorate, however much they may unscramble the organization charts...
...Here was Eisenhower the catalyst, who seems to symbolize the hopes of the revolution of rising expectations that has swept across Asia and Africa...
...The disagreements between General Charles de Gaulle of France and the leaders of the other NATO nations over the integration of forces are not new, but they served as a harsh reminder to the West that the alliance is neither so strong nor so unified as most persons in the United States would prefer to think it is...
...This is sure to bring calls for further Government economy...
...So NATO is going to have to rely on the conventional forces which concern General de Gaulle and the other NATO allies...
...He surely will communicate this understanding to officials in his Administration, and to some of the more sophisticated Congressmen on both sides of the aisle...
...Although there would still seem to be plenty of international issues available for the platoon of Democratic Presidential candidates, it is generally assumed in Washington that the so-called peace issue is likely to produce only Republican votes...
...Congressmen will soon be urging a reduction in expenditures so that taxes can be cut, if not this year then perhaps next year...
...Foreign aid figures for fiscal 1961 are still being carefully guarded by the penurious Budget Bureau...
...has promised an investigation of the ways in which Government makes policy, but these, he notes, will be "blue-ribbon" hearings...
...By Julius Duscha President Returns to Face Election-Year Congress DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER'S trip to Asia was one of his greatest personal triumphs since he took over the White House almost eight years ago...
...Yet economic assistance does provide many of the answers that the new Asian and African countries are seeking as they try to approach living standards in Europe and the United States...
...What domestic issues will the Democrats concentrate on to compete with these heady international events...
...If the steel strike is not settled when the Taft-Hartley injunction expires later this month, Congress unquestionably will inject itself into this controversy, but there are few votes to be made in such action...
...The President was faced with unsolved political problems even before he returned to Washington...
...As for legislation other than the appropriations bills that take up so much time in Congress, one can safely predict that Congress will sweeten Social Security benefits a bit in the 1960 election year...
...Although there are indications that economic assistance may be increased somewhat by the second session of the 86th Congress, which convenes tomorrow, only congenital optimists would predict that either the Administration or the Congress will appropriate enough money to meet even the most modest hopes of the leaders of the free countries of Asia and Africa...
...The North Atlantic Treaty Organization meetings held in Paris just prior to his arrival there emphasized once again the difficulties of maintaining a strong democratic alliance in the absence of a clear and present—and war-like—danger...
...This, however, is a problem that Congress cannot act on directly...
...Monev alone, of course, will not solve all of the economic problems of the underdeveloped nations, and few of their political difficulties are likely to disappear with the appropriation of hundreds of millions of additional dollars in American foreign aid...
...has once again criticized the Administration's space program and promised a searching investigation of it by his Senate Space Committee...
...In India, Pakistan, Afghanistan...
...Any workable solutions would be considered too politically explosive to be brought forward and championed in an election year...
...Such genuinely perplexing domestic issues as the farm problem or the increasing congestion and deterioration of cities will be discussed by Congress, but no one seriously thinks that any effort will be made to solve or even alleviate them...
...Those Americans who have seen the exhibit, which was opened by the President, think that it is making many friends for the U.S...
...Turkey and Iran the President was at his heroic best...
...This has become such a bipartisan endeavor, however, that the Democrats cannot expect to earn any political dividends from legislation which increases the benefits...
...But the Senator was saying the same things a year ago, and little in the way of meaningful hearings ever came out of all his talk...
...of the House Ways and Means Committee has already indicated that there is no possibility of a tax reduction in 1960...
...They have not been clearly defined as yet, but the broad outlines that have become visible hardly point to the kind of issues that can compete with summitry and with the first visit to Russia by an American President...
...Senator Henry L. Jackson (D.-Wash...
...This will be especially true in areas like foreign aid, since few if any constituents are clamoring for more money for India...
...Here was the Eisenhower who smiles so easily and so well, who accepts the adulation of the crowds with pleasing humility, who still manages to say the niceties without making them sound as banal as they appear when read in the following morning's newspapers...
...Such an approach surely is far superior to the preachy position the United States too often takes abroad...
...But like all good things, the trip had to come to an end...
...The focus of world attention, however, will be on a summit conference in April or May and on the trip to Russia which the President still is scheduled to make when the weather warms up in Moscow...
...Here was the man who was once the savior of Europe and who is now regarded by many Asians as a prince of peace...
...Americans who helped plan the United States exhibit at the World Agriculture Fair in New Delhi believe that it is a good example of the better understanding of Asia which is making itself felt in Washington...
...Chairman Wilbur D. Mills (D.-Ark...
...The slow progress of the American missile program, of course, does have an effect on the NATO alliance, but in some respects advances in waging nuclear warfare merely aggravate disagreements over who will control atomic-armed, as well as conventionally armed, forces...
Vol. 43 • January 1960 • No. 1
