"Point of Contact"

From Washington and the Middle West last week came salvos of the spring offensive in what might well become 1958's most important legislative battle. The issue: the Eisenhower Administration's all-out effort to persuade Congress, now interested mainly in domestic antirecession spending, to authorize $3,940,000,000 for foreign military and economic aid for fiscal 1959. Items:

P: In Washington, Defense Secretary Neil McElroy appeared as the first witness at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee foreign aid hearings, forcefully argued that foreign military aid is needed to help U.S. allies deliver "a counterblow of devastating effectiveness" if the Communists launch "a massive surprise attack." Added chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Nathan Twining: foreign military aid is "essential to security." The appearance of Pentagonians McElroy and Twining as the first witnesses emphasized an often forgotten fact: more than 69% of foreign aid goes toward the military strength of U.S. allies; only 30% is for nonmilitary use.

P: In Chicago, Vice President Richard Nixon called a press conference to speak out for foreign aid, noted that he had "a different position" from many Midwestern Republicans, noted too that "the money we spend in the mutual security field is really aid to ourselves-and if the time comes when it doesn't meet that test, then I think we should reduce it."

P: In an Omaha speech, General Alfred Maximilian Gruenther, onetime Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, now president of the American Red Cross, struck another note. Said he: "Take the arc from Japan to Afghanistan; you have a population of one and a half billion people. Approximately half of those people go to bed hungry each night. If we lose a significant number of those people, we are in trouble. I have faith in our religious civilization and the dignity of the human being which stems from that concept. That is what we are trying to establish as the point of contact."

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