OCR Text |
Show i dSeliind the Jdeadiined i ii , ii i , IT II 1 1 ' 1 1 ; 1 " As the congressional donny brook over foreign aid raged on in the House and Senate, the preview of a 1964 Republican Convention clash between New York's liberal Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller and Arizona's conservative Senator Barry M. Goldwater emerged as the most interesting behind-the-scenes political development. It came as a host of observers overlooked the . strong Republican Republi-can connections of Secretary of State Dean Rusk, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and of Secretary of the Treasury C. Douglas Dillon and called for the appointment of more Republicans Repub-licans to key positions in the Kennedy Administration. The fact that one of President Kennedy's first acts following his election was to ask former Vice-President Nixon if he wished to serve in his Administration, Admin-istration, and was refused, was generally overlooked. California's former Republican Governor Goodwin Knight seems to have sparked much of the new talk when he urged President Presi-dent Kennedy's appointment of General Douglas McArthur as U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union, so that he could talk the tough language Khrushchev would understand during the Berlin "crisis." Knight and others also urged the appointment of former President Presi-dent Dwight D. Eisenhower as either Secretary-General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization Organiza-tion or special U.S. Ambassador to NATO, so that Ike could strengthen NATO during the Berlin "crisis" and at the same time use his great reputation as a man of peace to win strong support for the U.S. position on Berlin among the uncommitted nations of the world. There were also widespread suggestions that Ike be named to head the U.S. delegation to the forthcoming session of the United Unit-ed Nations General Assembly, where decisive votes on such key U.S. foreign policies as the admission ad-mission of Red China are to be debated. U.S. Senator Joseph Clark (D-Pa) (D-Pa) urged President Kennedy to name Eisenhower his personal There were also mutterings, even within the Democratic party, par-ty, that President Kennedy should make a public request to former Vice-President Nixon to reconsider his decision against entering the Kennedy Administration, Admin-istration, to at least confer with the President on Berlin. Similar requests were suggested of Former For-mer Secretary of State Herter and ex-U.N. Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge, who have deferred invitations to aid JFK. All of this new talk of high Republican involvement with the Kennedy Administration came at the same time that many other liberals were roundly criticizing crit-icizing President Kennedy for his frequent foreign policy consultations consul-tations with "Old Guard" Republicans, Repub-licans, such as former President Herbert Hoover, General Mac-Arthur Mac-Arthur and conservative Senators Sena-tors Bridges of New Hampshire and Dirksen of Illinois, as well as Arizona's Goldwater. These liberals were urging President Kennedy to make greater use of the AFL-CIO's Walter Reuther, Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt, former President Harry Truman and U.N. Ambassador Am-bassador Adlai Stevenson, etc. in formulating and executing high foreign policy. President Kennedy could see best during the congressional battle over his $8,800,000,000 five-year foreign aid program, however, where he had to go in an effort to win needed bipartisan biparti-san foreign policy support. Arizona's Goldwater had already al-ready led strong conservative opposition to the plan and particularly partic-ularly to provisions for bypassing bypass-ing Congress to borrow aid funds from the U.S. Treasury. In his effort to rally liberal, internationalist support among GOPponents to his program, Kennedy requested that Secretary Secre-tary of State Dean Rusk, former head of the Rockefeller Foundation, Founda-tion, get in touch with Governor Rockefeller to request his strong support and aid on foreign aid. Rocky then was asked to put "gentle pressure" on GOP liberals liber-als to stand fast and on wavering Republicans, under strong pressure pres-sure from the GOP National Committee to defeat foreign aid, to back the President's aid program pro-gram "during the Berlin situa- disarmament advisor, the post now held by Banker John J. McCloy, who is anxious to return to his private affairs. Clark said that Eisenhower's appointment would show the world that the President would spare no effort to work for disarmament. dis-armament. It would be a dramatic drama-tic move to show the world, even as it teeters on the brink of war over Berlin, Clark said, that we are redoubling our efforts to reach workable East-West disarmament dis-armament agreements. Many other members of President Presi-dent Kennedy's own Democratic party also urged him to take General Eisenhower up on his longstanding offer to tour the world in behalf of world peace. There is probably nothing more important they say, than that the U.S. bring the non-European and neutralist nations over to our side on the Berlin and German problems as we consider bringing it into the United Nations. Na-tions. It's believed that Ike, by touring the world, could best begin rallying that support. There were also suggestions that Kennedy designate Ike, who played such a key role in formulating formu-lating postwar Allied policy on Berlin and Germany, as his personal per-sonal envoy to Berlin, or as American negotiator on Berlin in the proposed semi-summit talks with the Russians on the Berlin and German problems. tion." At the same time, Rocky was actively aiding the White House on foreign aid, conservative Goldwater was also pressuring wavering Republicans to stand fast against it. Several House and Senate GOP members say they haven't been subjected to so much pressure from rival Republican Re-publican blocs since the 1960 GOP Convention. To many, the congressional GOP battle over foreign aid became be-came what the 1964 Republican Convention is expected to become. be-come. As Goldwater led conservative conser-vative opposition to Rockefeller's liberal, internationalist rally, former Vice-President Richard Nixon watched from the sidelines. side-lines. For although he has endorsed en-dorsed "some foreign aid," Nixon was also waiting to see which way the Republican wind was blowing. Foreign aid, national unity during the Berlin "crisis" and our bipartisan foreign policy hung in the balance. But the congressional con-gressional foreign aid fight was much more like a political convention. con-vention. Studies at Harvard University show that six out of every ten juvenile delinquents in the U.S. have fathers who are excessive drinkers. |