Problem Number Two

Problem Number Two

- I r \ The problem of containing international communism appears to be, if we might quote a phrase, the second first most important thing facing the Kennedy Administration.

Since the end of World War II, our primary defense rgainst communistic expansion has been economic aid to backward or,depressed areas. The modest and temporary Marshall Plan of President Truman grew into the annual three to four billion dollar foreign aid programs set out in eight years of the Eisenhower budgets.

When we look at Laos and the Congo, Viet Nam and Guinea and above all, Tito's Yugoslavia, we wonder just how worthwhile this spending program has been. Certainly it appears that Germany, Italy and1 Japan, without our economic assistance, and in fact, each with reparations to pay and a ruined country to rebuild, have progressed further along the road toward political and economic stability than any of he backward countries into which we have poured billions of American dollars.

Now whether or not our aid was worthwhile becomes a moot question. The fact is that with'our deep recession at home and a serious imbalance of gold flow abroad, it is no longer feasible for the United States to continue buying foreign stability. Unless our former enemies will take up where we left off, and that seems unlikely, foreign aid is out. and a new diplomatic approach must be found. It’s time for another agonizing reappraisal.

When you consider that eight years ago 157,530 American casualties were sustained in- Korea to contain world wide communism and keep it 1500 miles from our shore, only to see within the past twelve months this same communism take over in Cuba, 90 miles from our shore, it is high time' that our diplomatic approach to the problem of containing communism underwent a serious reappraisal. >

RC-B.J r.