Washington

on the World Today

WHEN Lyndon Johnson last year suddenly postponed the scheduled visits to Washington of India’s Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri and Pakistan’s President Mohammed Ayub Khan, the criticisms of his handling of foreign policy problems reached a new high. For six months there were no state visitors to the White House. Then, in December, the President began what promises to be a long list of receptions for foreign diplomats.

President Ayub was first. He was followed by British Prime Minister Harold Wilson and West German Chancellor Ludwig Erhard. The meeting with Prime Minister Shastri, in some ways the most important, will enable the two leaders to examine relations that have been severely strained by misunderstandings and failures on both sides.

During the Wilson and Erhard visits, little immediate progress was made on a nuclear sharing agreement, but it was affirmed that non-nuclear nations should have “an appropriate share in nuclear defense.” Further studies and negotiations to this end were agreed upon. In a related move, the President promised cooperation with Western Europe in space exploration.

Some observers thought that this was an idle plan to divert attention from the more serious problem of nuclear sharing. On the contrary, it was a realistic proposal of the utmost value to European scientists and industrialists. They know that they cannot keep up with America in less complicated production unless they try to match the American effort in the more complex nuclear and space fields.

Yet no single European nation is wealthy enough to conduct the experiments under way in the United States. Many European industrialists are fearful that they are falling behind in electronics, communications, instrument reliability, microminiaturization, computers, and management because they are not undertaking the space and nuclear work their American counterparts are doing. If details of a cooperative adventure can be worked out, the alliance as well as European industry will be strengthened.

From a distance, Johnson seems to his foreign counterparts less interested in their problems than Kennedy was. Johnson’s approach is vastly different. But when he is face to face with a visitor, the latter’s doubts and misgivings often are overcome in the deluge of attention and interest the President manifests. He is persuasive in personal contact, where little bargaining is done, but he is tough in negotiations, which he leaves to emissaries.

The President frankly expects greater support in return for American aid. He reflects more than Kennedy did the congressional doubts about the benefits to America of the foreign aid program. He does not see why America should not use its huge food resources as a tool of foreign policy.

Dismay on the Nile

In the White House view, Egypt is a prime example of a country that responded to Johnson’s tough policy. For months Cairo engaged in violently anti-American tactics while receiving bold promises of Soviet aid. The noise did not persuade Johnson to rush to Egypt’s assistance. In fact, he turned his back, much to President Nasser’s dismay. When it became apparent in Cairo that Russia could not deliver on its promises, particularly to supply food, Nasser stopped denouncing the United States and appealed for food shipments. Johnson thereupon permitted negotiations to be resumed. He thought that Nasser, and others who had watched the exercise, had learned a lesson.

In the early days of the cold war many recipients of American aid believed that the surest guarantee of continued assistance was to threaten to go to Moscow. Now, on specific orders from the President, if any foreign official attempts that kind of persuasion, he is politely told: “That is perfectly all right. Go ahead. We wish you luck.”

The changed approach to aid is a mark not only of a different President but of changed circumstances. Officials of every food-hungry country know today that the Soviet Union must import millions of bushels of grain each year and that the United States, Canada, and Australia are the only important grain exporters. Moreover, Washington has concluded that the aggregate demand for aid is so great and is growing so rapidly, mainly because of the need for food, that aid from every source should be encouraged. The President has publicly proposed that Russia increase its aid program, and he still hopes that Russia may join the Asian Development Bank. Soviet representatives attended the Bangkok and Manila conferences which established the bank, and Moscow has not completely shut the door against participation.

Whatever the anguish in India, the President is justified, most Washington officials believe, in insisting that India do more to meet its own food needs. He wants to tie American aid to selfhelp programs in India and to the reform of India’s agriculture. It may appear to be cruel to use food as a bargaining weapon in such a manner when Indians are starving. Yet not even North America’s vast agricultural potential can meet India’s food deficit in the next decades. India’s own salvation requires a dramatic improvement at home.

Quick with force

The President professes not to understand why at home and abroad he is criticized for his conduct of foreign policy and praised for his leadership in domestic affairs. The criticism does not die down even though his staff disseminates statistics to show that he devotes an enormous amount of time to foreign issues.

Abroad, Johnson is often pictured as a man quick to rely on force. No doubt he thought that the use of force in Vietnam would bring results promptly. Washington still hopes that his vastly practical nature and political expertise may yet rescue him from the disasters of a long and ugly conflict in Vietnam. It is clear to all who know the President that he is determined both to stay the course and to find a solution at the earliest possible moment.

Exit Mr. Bundy

Whenever a man of outstanding intelligence leaves the government we are all poorer for it. There is no substitute for brains. McGeorge Bundy’s departure from the White House takes from the President’s counsels an unusually acute and perceptive mind. No other man has played a more significant role in the development of American foreign policy in the last five years except Presidents Kennedy and Johnson.

Bundy’s role has been on the level of a Cabinet officer not only because he has been at the President’s elbow or because State and Defense Department papers passed over his desk; he exercised power and influence because the two Presidents relied on his judgment.

Kennedy had considered appointing Bundy Secretary of State, but rejected the idea because, he said, he could not put at the head of his Cabinet a man with no political or governmental experience. Just after he was elected in 1960, Kennedy spoke of Bundy and Byron R. White as men who after some experience in the Administration could be entrusted with major departments “But not now,”he said when an acquaintance with whom he was talking urged him to go ahead and name Bundy Secretary of State in the first place. White was appointed Deputy Attorney General and later became Kennedy’s first nominee as a Supreme Court Justice.

After Kennedy’s death, Bundy knew and Washington knew that it was most unlikely that Johnson would appoint him Secretary of State. In 1960, Johnson urged Kennedy to choose Senator J. William Fulbright of Arkansas, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, as Secretary of State. Although the President now is furious with Fulbright because of his Criticisms of Administration policies in Vietnam and the Dominican Republic, Johnson has always believed that the Secretary of State should be a man of wide political ability and experience. Dean Rusk may have no political background, but members of Congress are impressed by his ability as a witness. He can soothe rather than exacerbate congressional tempers.

Bundy, on the other hand, might irritate Congress by his impatient and at times arrogant manner, as Dean Acheson did. Johnson is well aware of this, and he believes that if a Secretary of State lacks a political background, he must at least have a political instinct. As a White House staff officer, Bundy has been shielded from Congress and the public. He has briefed the press from time to time and in these sessions has sometimes displayed an attitude that annoyed the press and would infuriate Congress.

As president of the Ford Foundation, Bundy will be judged to some extent by the political risks he is willing to run. If he plays it safe, as so many foundation heads do, the opportunities for bold and provocative work will be missed. If he underwrites imaginative and controversial programs, he may well get into trouble with his board of directors and incur the hostility of Ford dealers, who in the past have complained about certain projects of a controversial nature. Yet the Ford Motor Company and the Foundation are entirely separate entities.

If Bundy seeks the advice of his former colleagues in the Great Society, the majority net doubt would tell him that the areas where the Foundation might be most effective are the big cities of the United States and the underdeveloped countries of the world. In both areas there are tasks which governments and existing social institutions cannot effectively undertake. In both there is the paralyzing problem of overpopulation. The Ford Foundation already has constructive programs in operation in American cities and in underdeveloped areas.

Is it beyond the means of a foundation with such large resources to find the answer to the question of why the Administration’s poverty program is in trouble and to design a better course? Is it beyond the Foundation’s ability to undertake, in India, for example, a program for population control and an agricultural development program to shore up the Indian democracy?

Control the Fed?

Another exceptionally able man, with long experience in Washington, was put to the political test recently and was found wanting. William McChesney Martin, Jr., the highly competent chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, can recover politically only if he is proved to be wiser economically than the President and his economic advisers. If there is inflation, then Martin and the other three board members who voted with him in December to raise the discount rate from 4 to 4.5 percent can say that they tried to fight it in time.

In terms of the board’s power, however, Martin made a political error. By his action be invited a congressional attack on Federal Reserve independence.

For years a congressional minority has believed that the Fed’s independence should be checked. Some of President Eisenhower’s economic advisers were of the same opinion, but they quarreled with the board only in private. Johnson’s advisers are much more emphatic in questioning the board’s right to act in defiance of the President, who was aware for some days that the board was considering a proposal to raise interest rates.

In an attempt to dissuade the board, he authorized a White House spokesman to say that the President believed interest rates already were too high. The interest paid on short-term Treasury bills increased 72 percent in four years. A major reason for the President’s concern, the spokesman said, was the resulting higher costs to states and municipalities in carrying out necessary improvements.

Despite the President’s public and private warnings, the board acted, without, as the President noted, waiting to see his January budget message. Congress was not in session, but its Joint Economic Committee immediately began an investigation of Federal Reserve policies. Representative Wright Patman of Texas, the board’s most persistent critic, was convinced that at last he could win his fight to curb the powers of the Federal Reserve.

Mood of the Capital

Cynicism is the word to describe our two great political parties as they go about the business of raising money to finance this year’s campaign. They have resorted to a form of blackmail that is clearly against the spirit if not the letter of the law, yet the public outcry against their practices is no more than a whimper. Each party is asking corporations to pay large sums of money for advertisements in party publications. This is to get around the law against political contributions by corporations.

The Democratic campaign book. Toward an Age of Greatness, led the way by selling advertising at $15,000 a page. Some of the advertisers are big defense contractors who would not dare refuse such a request from the party in power. And, after all, such an “expense” is tax deductible. Instead of denouncing the Democrats for an unethical practice, the Republicans acknowledged that they were doing the same thing. “Frankly, we can’t pass this up,” one GOP official told a reporter.

Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy made valiant efforts to persuade Congress to modernize the Corrupt Practices Act governing campaign contributions. But Congress showed little interest in the proposals. The Johnson Administration has not wanted to make an uphill fight for a reform it knows it might never win.

The cynicism of all involved should one day force a public reaction. Already an investigation is under way in New York of the campaign book prepared to raise money for Abraham D. Beame, the unsuccessful Democratic candidate for mayor. Despite a New York state law prohibiting corporations from making political contributions, pages were sold for $5000, $2500, and $1000, depending on the color and quality of paper used. The book itself did not appear until after the election, but served its purpose of paying part of the cost of Beame’s campaign.

The Eisenhower-Kennedy proposals for a law designed to encourage small contributions and to discourage contributions collected in an underhand way are still before Congress and badly need support.