THE FAILURE OF FOREIGN AID

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01365R000300210069-9
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 29, 2004
• Sequence Number: 69
• Publication Date: May 2, 1973
• Content Type: NSPR

iA HINGTON STAR (~ (.'',
Approved For Release 2O05/Q1/~ CfJRDP88-01365R000300210~6t J
C 1 /3-- L! L A-' S
Fd'< RN K
WASHING ;"ON CLOSE-UP --- . S (2, e Lf . 0 (, q S-`mTc- "fi
G' ~ L?7,+ li' ~.~~ u ' r,trl ~ L.-? ~' ~ l; l;~t~ ~ tr a._~ !~ ~ ~r:,c\ ~ ~j
The most obvious and sen-
sationalist reason for a thor-
;tugh review of the foreign-aid
program is that the program
has on occasion been Su-
barned by the CIA for its own
secretive purposes. It was,
apparently, used as a CIA
cover during the period when
our war in Laos was a bi
secret to be kept from the
American people at all costs.
And, according, to the Cos-
ta-Gavras movie, "State of
siege", recently the suhiect of
a scandalous cancellation at
the American Filin Institute.
All) officers themselves have
instructed the police of client
in the delicate arts of
nation,
the torture of political prison-
el?s.
Obviously, if these things
are going on in the Norte of
foreign aid, the taxpayers
deserve to know about it fully
and their representatives in
Congress deserve the chance
to vote openly for assassina-
tion, torture, secret wars and
so on, rather than to do so in
the illusion that they are vot-
ing for improved crop yield
and birth control information
in underdeveloped countries.
But all of that suln-ersion of
foreign aid leas been the prod-
uct. of limited minds at CIA,
the same sort of minds that
participated so heavily in
bath Inc )-ay of Pi~ys and the
\Vatergtate conspiracy and
burglary. 'T'here are other,
11101?e sel'iOtis reused s for
(l tlestii)]11nct f0I'C`1'?il aid and
they are cdtcrpd ii a pem trat.-
ing, depressing mill complete-
ly convincing, new book by
\Vu'liiil:'loil-l>ased r;reno-
ruisls William and I'll.sahelh
I>addoc'1:.
The Paddocl.s call their
hook "We Don't 1?;tiov; floc.,'''
By FRANK' GETLEIN
and the title stints it up.
With long experience in
Central America in numerous
branches of foreign aid, the
Paddocks compiled. in Wash-
inton, a list of aid projects
there that the home offices
here regard as extraordinari-
ly successful. 'T'hen they went
back to Guatenula, Honduras
and I,I Salvador to look at
tl',cse "SUcccq.WS." 'f he\' also
visited a number of other as-
sorted enterprises in, the re-
gion and a boomtown in Mexi-
co.
`fiicir conclusions are sober-
ing, their details sometimes
appalling.
Among the latter are, statis-
tics gathered in the same
cheerfully casual y,ays as the
celebrated "hotly-counts" of
the first major phase of our
Indochinese war, according to
lulled off everybody three or
four tinges.
But it is upon those statis-
tics that present programs
are continued, future ones
devised.
7A '
By looking, asking ques-
tions of the local poop le, who
really know how tl ids;, are
going and by coingariiw con-
flict?;isr or coinplemcntary
sets of statistics, the Pad-
docks have concluded that
forein aid i3 not only a fail-
ure but an inevitable failure.
One reason is sigh; iy that
any cffective in1,,IOycin nC in
CCOt1C,t11iC conditions cliaties a
much greater increase in
populatiotf 1?.hich ;'.'ipe;s Out
the economic improvement
and then Some.
Sources of real, measurable
i:npro`, cn:cl:t in li\ in g coruli-
t ions often are somewhat
to libi-1-:11 oil.
servers. include: the
money brought home by wet-
back agricultural laborers in
the United States; the sheer
prexilnity to the United States
of one Mexican boomtown and
the relative Amc-ricnn acces-
sibit.ity of one in Honduras;
aid, of all thins, the long-
term economic benefits of the
United Fruit Coml)any, the
feared and denounced "FI
I'ulpo"-the octopus--lorlg
blamed as an imperialist ex
pioitcr.
The PO}cldocks have no fool-
proof plant to make foreign aid
work. Indeed, the point of
their book is: "I don't know.
You don't know. Nobody
knows." But they do cffor two
powerfully sensible sugges-
tions.
The first is simply that, giv-
en our increased uncJE_rstanl-
ln;; of the size and the depth of
our own "pockets of poverty,''
more of cur money fr'r reform;
should he pat into A rcrican'
areas in need of it-for exam-
ple, Appalachia, the inner
city, Puerto Rico, Indian res-
ervations and Congress, all of
Which societies Or% out for
structural changes of the
1{II1dS we ha\'e trX::, ii?gSIIC-
eessfuily, to create cls:;;~Ilere
in the name of fo; ei':n aaid.
Their second thought is to
start puttiup In: iioy, u;Iiloter-
ally, into the United IN atiolls
aS en actual pence-fir, ring
force, ratable for shall in-
1 icaf.s. Ti')se naticrs, relieVcd
of the crushing bttrhen of
arri111uf)lits p"Irchaso'! from
113 or from tin' Litssiiois as
fog cig;n aid, wwdd then have
at least the Ix's;ir.nif;xs of the
capitrd ne tided to t