1961: United States

A summary of United States foreign relations, political events, and legislative and judicial developments in 1961 is presented below.

FOREIGN RELATIONS

Again in 1961 U.S. foreign relations were dominated by a series of protracted crises abroad which revealed the continuing clash of interest and purpose between the Communist and the Western worlds. No crisis of 1961 had its inception in the events of the year or terminated in any East-West settlement of mutual advantage. Each conflict promised to torment the world in the year or years that would follow. Yet in the persistence of all Cold War issues lay one element of hope, for again in 1961 it was clear that if the fundamental areas of disagreement defied settlement, they also produced no wars. What was disturbing in the events of 1961, however, was the inescapable conclusion that the United States was increasingly incapable of having its way amid the growing power and expansive tendencies of Russia and China, the continuing emancipation of the colored and semi-colonial peoples of the world, and the increasing independence of Western Europe and Japan.

After January 1961, a new national leadership attempted to answer the deepening challenges of foreign affairs. President Kennedy, unlike his predecessor, Dwight D. Eisenhower, made it quite clear that he would conduct the foreign relations of the United States in person. To advise him in foreign and defense matters, he selected a generally undramatic and nonpartisan group headed by Dean Rusk as Secretary of State, Chester Bowles as Undersecretary of State, and Adlai E. Stevenson as chief U.S. delegate to the United Nations. But whether these men, supported by new, younger staff officers in the administration, could stabilize the frontiers between the West and the Communist world depended as much on their ability to reduce American ambitions around the globe as on their power to limit the demands of Peking and Moscow.

U.S.-Soviet Relations.

The Cold War.

During the early months of 1961 it became clear that far more than a change of leadership would be required to alter appreciably this nation's response to the cold war. The major questions of Eastern and Central Europe continued to defy settlement on terms of established East-West positions. The Kennedy administration revealed no more inclination than its predecessors to accept the status quo in Europe as the basis of negotiation. It continued to demand agreements anchored to the principle of self-determination of peoples. That past attitudes of moral disapprobation would continue to govern American purpose toward the U.S.S.R. was demonstrated, for example, when the President during July proclaimed 'Captive Nations Week,' urging the American people to recommit themselves with appropriate ceremonies to the support of the just aspirations of all peoples for national independence and freedom. Neither in spirit nor in content was there any measurable shift in American policy toward Europe during the first year of the Kennedy administration.

That this nation's postwar position on Germany would not change was made clear on February 17 when the President, following a White House conference with Foreign Minister Heinrich von Brentano of West Germany, confirmed the American goal of 'German reunification based upon the principle of self-determination and the preservation of the freedom of the people of West Berlin.' At the same time the new administration accepted the obligation to reach a 'breakthrough' — perhaps even some solid settlement with the Kremlin. The President declared on January 30: 'This Administration intends to explore promptly all possible areas of co-operation with the Soviet Union.' He repeated this goal on February 15: 'I am hopeful that real progress can be made this year ... to co-operate in peaceful ventures.'

The Kennedy-Khrushchev Meeting.

Nothing had occurred to deflate this mood of optimism when the White House announced on May 19 that President Kennedy had agreed to meet Premier Khrushchev in Vienna on June 3 and 4. The meeting, declared the announcement, would not seek specific agreements but rather would afford a convenient opportunity for a general exchange of views on world affairs. But the President's decision to find agreement with Charles de Gaulle in Paris before seeing Khrushchev limited his field for maneuver in advance, for De Gaulle had long opposed any negotiation over the question of West Berlin.

For the President the exchange with Khrushchev in Vienna proved to be a disillusioning experience. The Soviet Premier, declaring that West Berlin was a bone in the Soviet throat, handed the President a note on June 4 which stated that unless there was a settlement of the German problem, including the conversion of West Berlin into a demilitarized free city, the Soviet Union would sign a peace treaty with Communist East Germany and turn over to that government the control of access to West Berlin. Kennedy replied that the West was in Berlin legally, not by Soviet sufferance, and intended to remain even at the risk of war. What gave the President a measure of hope was the fact that the Soviet leader conveyed at Vienna no sense of urgency. But upon his return to Moscow, Khrushchev announced that a peace settlement with the West must be made before the end of the year.

Kennedy's report to the nation on June 6 reflected a feeling of desperation. 'I will tell you now,' he said, 'that it was a very sober two days ... for the facts of the matter are that the Soviets and ourselves give wholly different meanings to the same words.... We have wholly different views of right and wrong, of what is an internal affair and what is aggression. And above all, we have wholly different concepts of where the world is and where it is going.'

The New Berlin Crisis.

With the events of June, the administration began to appreciate the enormity of Soviet ambition and hostility. During the weeks that followed the new Soviet ultimatum on Berlin, both Democratic and Republican leaders in Congress assured the Kennedy administration of their support for any policy that would maintain free access to West Berlin. Former Vice President Richard M. Nixon voiced a widespread conviction when he declared on June 24 that the United States 'must risk war to avoid war.' Not until July 17 did the United States, with England and France, reply to the Soviet note of June 4. The Western note again warned the Kremlin that 'should the U.S.S.R. make unilateral moves in its German policy, contrary to binding international agreements, the NATO countries could only interpret such moves as a purposeful threat to their national interests.' Any fruitful negotiation of the Berlin problem, the note continued, must be based on the principle of self-determination.

During mid-July this war of words degenerated into a more critical phase of brinkmanship which involved armament and mass mobilization. Khrushchev inaugurated the new crisis when he canceled a cut-back in Soviet ground forces and increased the 1961 Soviet defense budget by three billion rubles. West German sources, at the same time, announced that Soviet and East German forces around Berlin included 67,500 troops and 1,200 tanks, whereas the West had only a token force of 11,000 troops in West Berlin. As early as July 10 Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara warned that Soviet military spending would force the United States to re-examine its needs in Europe. Several days later the Pentagon added that the Army draft call for August would be raised to 8,000 men. Then, on July 25, President Kennedy informed the nation that he was asking for an increase of 217,000 soldiers, sailors, and airmen by stepping up the draft and by mustering some reserve and National Guard units. To achieve these goals, the President sought an increase of over $3 billion in the 1961 defense budget, bringing the total to $47.5 billion, by far the largest military budget since World War II. Early in August Congress voted the new defense budget overwhelmingly.

The Wall.

The deepening crisis over Berlin sent an unprecedented stream of East German refugees through Berlin into West Germany. By August this number had reached a thousand a day. It was apparent that the Soviets, in order to protect their position in Central Europe, would be forced to choke off the escape route. On the night of August 12 the Communists closed the border of West Berlin. Cars and pedestrians were stopped at the Brandenburg Gate; service ended on the Communist-run elevated rail line; and barricades of barbed wire, guns, and tanks were set up. Soon West Berlin was sealed off completely, except for the movement of Allied personnel, by the erection of a wall.

Western officials interpreted the wall as a further threat to the free status of West Berlin. Secretary Rusk denounced the Soviet travel ban as a 'flagrant violation' of the Soviet agreement to permit 'free circulation' within the city and between Berlin and the rest of Germany. Rusk termed the flight of thousands of Germans as proof of 'the failures of Communism in East Germany.' It was because of these failures that the U.S.S.R. was now threatening 'the freedom and safety of West Berlin.' On August 17, the U.S., British, and French embassies in Moscow handed the Soviet Foreign Ministry identical notes charging that the barricades violated the four-power agreement on free movement throughout the city of Berlin.

Having failed to prevent the erection of the wall, the U.S. government demonstrated its determination to defend Western rights in West Berlin by dispatching Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson on a flying trip to Bonn and West Berlin. At the same time the President ordered a U.S. battle group from Mannheim to roll into West Berlin to strengthen the American forces already there. At Bonn Johnson declared: 'The American people have no genius for retreat, and we do not intend to retreat now,' and in West Berlin he assured Mayor Willy Brandt and the throngs who greeted him at Templehof air base that the United States would never forget its obligations to the continued freedom of the city.

All American efforts after August to discover some area of compromise in the Berlin controversy ended in frustration. In his address to the U.N. General Assembly on September 25, President Kennedy repeated the warning that the Western powers would stand firm on West Berlin. But he believed it possible, he said, to achieve a peaceful agreement 'which protects the freedom of West Berlin and Allied presence and access, while recognizing the historic and legitimate interests of others in assuring European security.' On the following day Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei A. Gromyko stated his nation's position with equal clarity. The persistent allegation that the U.S.S.R. threatened either the freedom of West Berlin or Western access to the city, he said, was a gross distortion. What was required to guarantee West Berlin's ties with every country of Europe was the 'unqualified respect of the state through whose territory run the land, air, and water communications linking West Berlin with the outside world, the sovereignty of the German Democratic Republic.'

Late in September Secretary Rusk and Minister Gromyko began a series of exploratory talks to examine the substantive elements in the Berlin controversy. For Rusk the issue centered on the 'guarantees' that the Soviets would concede for continued access to West Berlin; for Gromyko what mattered was the amount of recognition he could obtain for the East German regime. It soon became apparent that the two officials would reach no acceptable agreement. On October 5 President Kennedy met with Gromyko for another review of the issues in dispute over Berlin and Germany. Again the conversation revealed only the depth of the disagreement. To Kennedy, Gromyko offered no proposal that did not promise to undermine all Western rights of occupation in Berlin. The Soviet Minister, for example, demanded a totally free city of Berlin, with no stronger relationship to West Germany than to any other nation. This formula, it seemed, would eventually destroy West Berlin's political ties with West Germany. At his news conference following his talks with Gromyko, the President declared that on matters of substance 'we are not in sight of land.' The issues, he admitted, were more clearly defined, but there was no assurance of any clear solution.

One week later, on October 15, the meeting of the Western leaders in London collapsed under the refusal of France to proceed with any planning for possible negotiations over Berlin. British officials accused the French of contributing nothing to Allied policy but immobility. Amid such Western disunity Khrushchev announced on October 17 that he would withdraw his deadline for a German peace treaty if the Western powers revealed some readiness to negotiate. This removed, at last, the charge that the Soviet leader was attempting to impose a solution on the West.

Chancellor Conrad Adenauer's talks with President Kennedy, beginning on November 19, merely confirmed the absence of a negotiating base on the question of Berlin. Adenauer insisted that nothing be done to weaken West Berlin, to liquidate the hope of eventual German unification, or to undermine NATO's striking power. In agreeing substantially with the West German position, the President all but ruled out any serious negotiation of the German problem in the foreseeable future, for his adherence to the principle of self-determination left no room for maneuvering.

U.S. Relations with Asia.

Laos.

President Kennedy, upon entering the White House in January 1961, was confronted with a rapidly deteriorating situation in Laos. The established American purpose, after 1954, of converting Laos into a Western bastion through extensive military aid had failed under the dual impact of the inefficiency of the pro-Western regime and the increased flow of Soviet supplies to the Communist-led rebel forces of Pathet Lao. Recognizing the American over-commitment, the Kennedy administration offered a neutral Laos as the basis of a settlement with the Communist bloc. Unfortunately, even this limited objective was no longer easy to obtain, for the rebels had gained a clear military advantage over the pro-Western government of Prince Boun Oum. During March, while the United States sought a cease-fire, Pathet Lao forces pushed the Royal Laotian army out of the mountains north of Vientiane and gained control of a corridor leading from the north to South Vietnam and Cambodia. The collapsing Laotian army suffered from a lack of discipline and a will to fight.

It was under such adverse conditions that the West gained a cease-fire agreement on May 3 which inaugurated the fourteen-nation Geneva conference to compromise East-West differences over Laos. While the truce commission in Laos continued to report jungle fighting, American Ambassador W. Averell Harriman and Soviet Foreign Minister Gromyko in Geneva accused opposing forces of violating the cease-fire agreement. Before the end of May the discussions at Geneva had failed so completely that both sides asked for further instructions and decided to mark time until President Kennedy and Premier Khrushchev met in Vienna. At their meeting both heads of state confirmed their support of a neutral and independent Laos. But the formal achievement of neutrality early in October hardly removed the war-torn region from the cold war or reduced its strategic significance in the continuing struggle for the regions to the south.

South Vietnam.

Communist pressure against the pro-Western government of South Vietnam became the concern of the Kennedy administration in May 1961. After years of tranquility, this small state, created by the division of Indochina into a Communist North and a non-Communist South in the Geneva settlement of 1954, had become subject to subversion and aggression from Communist North Vietnam. In June the President dispatched Vice President Johnson to assure the free people of Southeast Asia that the United States would not surrender them to Communism 'without putting up a fight.' Returning to Washington, the Vice President declared before the United Press International editors: 'The front line of freedom today lies in Vietnam, Thailand, and Pakistan. It is our obligation to ourselves and to our descendants to so conduct ourselves that those lines will not be breached or pushed back.'

As the situation continued to deteriorate, President Kennedy announced on October 14 that he was sending his military adviser, General Maxwell D. Taylor, to South Vietnam to gather information for a major reassessment of the position of the United States in Southeast Asia. During his three-week mission General Taylor sought to determine the nature and scope of the Communist threat, the reasons why the South Vietnamese army, despite U.S. aid, could not carry out a more aggressive campaign against the Communist insurgents, and what long-range programs, including possible military action, might strengthen the Western position. Taylor, reporting to the President on November 4, directed his recommendations at the shortcomings of the South Vietnamese government and military structure. He called for the appointment of responsible young officers who would carry the fight to the enemy and the removal of officers who owed their appointments to favoritism. Following Taylor's recommendations, the President decided against the use of American troops but planned instead to send hundreds of specialists in guerrilla warfare, logistics, engineering, communications, and intelligence to train the South Vietnamese forces. President Kennedy made it clear that he expected President Ngo to adopt reforms and free the military staff structure of political interference. During November the U.S. Air Force began a huge supply and training program in Saigon to strengthen the country's defenses. What remained was the problem of retaliation, for it was evident that North Vietnam would cite increased American activity in the South to justify its own increased intervention, possibly with Soviet and Chinese support.

China.

During 1961 the Kennedy administration sought no escape from the dilemma of sustaining a traditional allegiance to Chiang Kai-shek amid worldwide pressures in behalf of the Peking regime. In his final State of the Union message of January 12, the President assured Chiang that there would be no change in American policy. 'This country,' he said, 'has continued to withhold recognition of Communist China and to oppose vigorously the admission of this belligerent and unrepentant nation into the U.N.' But despite its public assurances to the Nationalist regime on Taiwan, the administration could no longer regard the ten-year record of inflexible opposition to Peking a promising guide for future action. Late in June, therefore, the State Department announced that it was considering a number of alternatives to resolve the dilemma posed by Taipei's declining support in the U.N. Secretary Rusk then unveiled a two-Chinas proposal that would offer Communist China and the Nationalist regime equal representation in the U.N. General Assembly. Peking, having declared repeatedly that it would not share representation with the Nationalists, would, under this plan, refuse to accept its seat and thereafter bear sole responsibility for its continued diplomatic isolation. Rusk at the same time assured the China bloc that the United States was not planning the entry of Communist China into the U.N., but rather was attempting to prevent the Nationalist regime from losing its seat.

When the administration announced in July that it favored the seating of the Mongolian People's Republic (MPR) in the U.N., it again assured Chiang that this move was designed to sustain whatever support Taipei still enjoyed among the African nations. Administration spokesmen pointed out that the acceptance of the MPR was essential to secure Soviet approval for the African state of Mauritania. As further evidence that American policy had not changed, President Kennedy invited Chen Cheng, Vice President and Premier of the Nationalist regime on Taiwan, to visit him in Washington during the first days of August. In the joint communiqué that terminated their meetings, the President and Vice President noted the reports of apathy, discontent, and disillusionment on the mainland of China. They agreed that the Communist regime could not meet the genuine needs of the Chinese people for economic and social progress. The thorny issue of the MPR the two national spokesmen left unresolved.

During August the administration announced that it would desert the ten-year tradition of leading the opposition to any formal debate in the General Assembly on the question of Chinese representation. When the sixteenth General Assembly convened in September, New Zealand, with U.S. approval, proposed that 'representation of China' be included on the 1961 agenda. With a minimum of delay, the Assembly, on September 25, adopted the agenda proposed by the steering committee, which included the question of Communist China's admission.

Eventually the United States persuaded Chiang not to resort to the veto to bar the admission of the MPR to the U.N. To secure the cooperation of the Nationalist regime on Taiwan the United States promised not to recognize the MPR and to abstain rather than vote affirmatively in the Security Council on seating it. Finally on October 25 the Security Council, by a vote of 9 to 0, with the United States and the Nationalist representative abstaining, approved membership for the MPR.

Meanwhile continued reverses in the U.N. rendered repeated American assurances to Chiang almost meaningless. To forestall a U.N. decision on China, American officials during August proposed a strategy whereby the General Assembly would establish a committee or panel to spend a year in studying the China question. By October a frantic survey of the U.N. membership revealed that not one nation, whether it had recognized the Peking regime or not, cared to introduce the U.S. resolution. New Zealand, Australia, and the Philippines, all allies of the United States in the Far East, expressed no interest in the U.S. strategy whatever. During the U.N. debates of November the chief barrier to change in Chinese representation lay in the extreme Communist demands that Peking represent all Chinese territory, including the island of Taiwan itself. Finally, on December 15, the General Assembly voted down the proposal to seat Communist China.

U.S.-Latin American Relations.

Cuba.

The nation's perennial quarrel with Fidel Castro, the Cuban leader, reached a new level of animosity and frustration on Apr. 17, 1961, when an American-sponsored invasion of the island failed to overthrow the revolutionary Cuban regime. The effort of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency to unite the Cuban exiles into an effective counter-revolutionary force began as early as May 1960, when it was clear that Castro's ties to the Communist bloc were a threat to Western Hemisphere security. By early 1961 there were 2,000-3,000 rebel soldiers in training in the United States. To fuse the anti-Castro forces, which varied from Batista henchmen to leftist anti-Communist opponents of Castro, into one movement, CIA in February threatened to withdraw U.S. supplies unless the opposing factions worked out a modus operandi. In March a Revolutionary Council in Miami assumed control of the anti-Castro forces. It promised free general elections within eighteen months after Castro's defeat.

During March, events moved toward a climax. President Miguel Ydigoras of Guatemala, under extreme pressure from pro-Castro elements in his country, gave the Cuban rebels until June 1 to evacuate their Guatemala training bases. Simultaneously reports from Cuba indicated growing unrest against the Castro government. The final invasion plan called for an attack by a small force, enough to inaugurate a general uprising across Cuba. This initial attack would be followed quickly by the establishment of other beachheads. On April 16 the Revolutionary Council met in secret session to discuss the invasion, but CIA did not inform it where and when the landing would be made. On the following morning about 1,300 assault troops struck the Cienaga de Zapata swamps of Las Villas Province. There was no popular uprising; the underground knew nothing of the landing. Castro's regulars demolished the invasion force, placing the revolutionary government more firmly in power than ever before.

President Kennedy, the victim of erroneous intelligence, assumed full responsibility for the Cuban fiasco. After careful reflection, he agreed with his staff that Castro's Cuba, even with its MIG fighters, was no serious menace to the security of the United States. Before the American Society of Newspaper Editors in Washington, on April 20, the President asserted that any unilateral American intervention in Cuba in the absence of any clear external aggression against the United States or an ally 'would have been contrary to our traditions and to our international obligations.' But the Cuban people, he warned, had not spoken their final piece.

Stevenson's Latin American Tour.

To explain this nation's attitude toward Castro's Cuba to Latin American leaders, Adlai E. Stevenson left for Venezuela on June 4 to begin an eighteen-day tour of ten South American capitals. His purpose, he said, was to engage in an 'exchange of ideas' with heads of government and economic specialists in each country. At Caracas Stevenson received a cordial welcome from President Romulo Betancourt and met none of the hostility that had marked the visit of Vice President Nixon in 1958. Stevenson asserted, at a news conference, that the United States sought improved economic and social conditions for Latin America, not an alliance against Castro. In Argentina President Arturo Frondizi revealed genuine interest in U.S. economic aid, but suggested that the United States would gain little support in South America against the Cuban regime. It would be preferable, he said, for the United States to adopt a policy of 'live and let live.'

In Montevideo, Uruguay, Stevenson ran into his first opposition. Uruguayan supporters of Castro called a mass meeting to repudiate Stevenson's mission. No crowds greeted him at the airport or lined his route into the city. In his statement to newsmen, Stevenson pointedly avoided the question of Cuba. Leaving Rio de Janeiro on June 12, Stevenson informed newsmen that the United States disliked the presence of dictatorship in Latin America. But this observation did not prevent a brief, friendly conversation with Paraguay's President Alfredo Stroessner, regarded as South America's only remaining dictator. In Santiago, Chile, Stevenson's visit was marked by violence as leftist youths smashed windows in the U.S. Information Agency. Again in La Paz, Bolivia, leftist demonstrators used the occasion of Stevenson's visit to embarrass President Victor Paz Estenssoro. During the rioting four leftist demonstrators were slain by police. In Lima, Peru, Stevenson's next stop, the guard at the U.S. Embassy was doubled and an extra 700 policemen were mustered to protect the American visitor. Stevenson's concluding visits to Ecuador and Colombia incited no significant pro-Castro riots. In his official report, released in August, Stevenson observed that the threat of Castro-Communism thrives 'on urban slum conditions and rural insecurity. The poor in the cities and the countryside, who are no longer passive politically, must see reason for hope in life under free institutions....'

The Alliance for Progress.

To meet this challenge of poverty in Latin America, President Kennedy proposed his Alliance for Progress to the assembled Latin American ambassadors on March 13 and, at the end of the year, made a brief visit to Venezuela and Colombia to outline the program. It was designed to implement the Act of Bogotá of September 1960, which for the first time made social reform a prior condition for economic aid. Its purpose, said the President, was to 'transform the American continents into a vast crucible of revolutionary ideas and efforts.' The Alliance for Progress was not an answer to Castro, but to conditions of poverty and illiteracy which created the vast sources of political instability in the Western Hemisphere.

For Latin Americans the Kennedy program was acceptable indeed. What was troublesome, however, was the matter of implementation, for there was no easy formula which would determine whether a country was taking sufficiently bold steps toward social reform to merit U.S. aid. There was the further problem of resentment among Latin Americans at the realization that even their social justice had to be financed by the United States. At a special meeting of the Inter-American Economic and Social Council, held at Punta del Este, Uruguay, Secretary of the Treasury Douglas Dillon, on August 7, declared that 'we welcome the revolution of rising expectations among our peoples and we intend to transform it into a revolution of rising satisfactions.' Mr. Dillon recommended the immediate establishment of task forces on education, land reform, and low-cost housing as 'vital ingredients' of the Alliance for Progress.

Santo Domingo.

Santo Domingo disturbed U.S.-Latin American relations further when its dictator of thirty-one years, Generalissimo Rafael Leonidas Trujillo Molina, was assassinated on May 30. In the crisis President Joaquin Balaguer remained at the head of state, supported by Rafael L. Trujillo, Jr., son of the slain dictator, who returned to Ciudad Trujillo to assume command of the island's military forces. Within days U.S. naval vessels patrolled the waters of Santo Domingo to prevent either chaos or a Castro-type revolution. During the succeeding months, Balaguer and Trujillo, having promised free elections in 1962, resisted all immediate pressures from opposing political groups for democratic reforms. For the United States, as well as many Latin American nations, the successful establishment of a democracy in the Dominican Republic presented the greatest opportunity yet experienced by the inter-American system to demonstrate that radical revolutions were unnecessary for democratic progress in a Latin American nation. When the Balaguer regime during November showed signs of instability, Secretary Rusk warned the leaders of the Dominican Republic: 'In view of the possibility of political disintegration and the dangerous situation which could ensue, the Government of the United States is considering the further measures that unpredictable events might warrant.'

The O.A.S. and Cuba.

Throughout 1961 American officials continued their struggle for some measure of hemispheric unity against the Castro regime. They continued to charge that Cuba was a Communist satellite and that the combined activity of Fidelistas and Communists throughout Latin America was a danger to the security of all American states. To define the Cuban problem in these terms suggested no remedy but intervention; in such action few Latin Americans had any interest at all. Venezuela in November 1961 joined eight other Latin American nations in breaking diplomatic relations with the Castro regime, but President Betancourt declared emphatically that 'the rupture does not change by one iota Venezuela's policy of non-intervention in Cuba.'

On November 9, Colombia requested that the foreign ministers of the Americas meet in January 1962 to consider measures for hemispheric defense against any threat 'that may emerge from the intervention of extra-continental powers, aimed at breaking the American solidarity.' It was apparent that such countries as Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Ecuador, and Mexico harbored deep reservations about calling such a conference. To Governor Luis Muñoz-Marin of Puerto Rico the United States was simply too obsessed with the question of Fidel Castro and Cuba. So predominant were such views in Latin America that late in November the Colombian resolution had the active support of only the United States, Venezuela, Costa Rica, and Guatemala. Even if these nations could command a majority vote in calling for a foreign ministers conference, the opposition of Brazil, Argentina, and Mexico appeared sufficient to lessen the political impact.

LEGISLATION

When the first session of the 87th Congress met on Jan. 3, 1960, it appeared that President Kennedy would have an easy time of it on Capitol Hill. For one thing, the Democrats were still firmly in control in both houses. In the Senate their margin was 65 to 35, in the House 263 to 174. It was, in fact, the first time since 1954 that the same party had control of the White House as well as Congress. The wheels appeared to be well oiled for the trip to the New Frontier. Roadblocks soon appeared along the trail, but not before an impressive succession of presidential victories in the early weeks of the Congress. The President quickly got a depressed areas bill, a $1.25 minimum wage law, a temporary unemployment compensation program, a liberalization of Social Security benefits, and a multi-billion-dollar housing bill.

For the most part, these bills and others he won later served to extend and expand established programs. When the President pushed for new innovations, for what he called his 'New Frontier' proposals designed to 'get the country moving again,' he found the going sluggish. For, while the Democrats held the numerical advantage in both houses, the President encountered a much narrower ideological division. He lacked a stable and loyal majority of moderate-to-liberal Democrats. In the House particularly, conservative influences made up of Republicans and some 100 Southern Democrats often proved too formidable.

At the outset, the Administration did win a major victory over the House coalition by succeeding in an enlargement of the House Rules Committee, long the main center of conservative power. The 12-member panel, headed by conservative Virginia Democrat Howard W. Smith, had long been dominated by a conservative coalition of two Southern Democrats and four Republicans that made it virtually impossible for the Democratic congressional leadership to win a majority for any liberal-slanted legislation. With the President's support, Speaker Sam Rayburn set out to gain control of the committee by enlarging its roster to fifteen. The Speaker and the White House won in a dramatically close, 217-to-212 vote. Two regular Democrats and one Republican were added to the panel, presumably giving the Democratic leadership control by an 8-to-7 margin.

Undoubtedly, if the Administration had lost that battle the Kennedy legislative program would have had even more problems during the session. The conservatives nevertheless managed to exert powerful influences in other committees as well as on the floor in working against the Administration's economic and social programs. Their position, in fact, had been solidified in part by the Republican gain of 21 House seats in the 1960 elections.

Thus, despite the fact that the first year of the 87th Congress was the President's 'honeymoon' session, his efforts at legislative trail-blazing often fell short. The power of the House conservatives was obviously one reason; another was the President's narrow victory in the presidential election—the slimmest margin in a century—which may have impaired his effectiveness by raising doubts over whether he had won a mandate from the voters for his New Frontier program. Perhaps still another reason was that the whole series of world crises, including those in Berlin and Southeast Asia, so preoccupied the President his first year in office that of necessity his congressional program was reduced to secondary importance.

Congress, of course, shared this concern for the national safety—as reflected in its willingness to provide generously for defense, in some instances giving the Administration more than it had sought. Moreover, Republicans in general withheld their usual fire on foreign policy issues, except for some blasts at the failure of the Cuban invasion earlier in the year. Accordingly, Congress embraced such presidential proposals to advance world peace as the Peace Corps, the new Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, the Alliance for Progress program for Latin American development, and the basic $4,000,000,000 foreign aid program.

In these areas, and in terms of sheer volume of output, the consensus was that the congressional record was outstanding. Into the unfinished business file, however, went such key domestic Administration programs as medical care for the aged under the Social Security system, the creation of a Department of Urban Affairs, a postal rate increase bill, certain tax reform proposals, a basic overhaul of the unemployment compensation program, and federal aid to education.

Education.

Undoubtedly the greatest defeat of the session for the President came in the failure of Congress to approve his school-aid bill. His proposal for $2,298,000,000 in federal grants for public school construction and teachers' salaries over three years made some progress—the Senate passed it. But by the session's end, it had become completely bogged down in the House in a morass of economic and religious pressures. The conservatives were against it because of their traditional opposition to the principle of federal aid. But, in addition, Roman Catholic demands for federal aid to parochial schools as part of any general school-aid program stirred additional opposition. The combination led to the President's failure to achieve what he called his No. 1 legislative goal in the domestic field.

The President, a Catholic himself, found himself at odds with the leaders of his church. In his school message of February 20, the President had said that no elementary and secondary school funds were allocated for 'constructing church schools or paying church school teachers' salaries' and that this was in 'accordance with the clear prohibition of the Constitution.' The Catholic Church hierarchy, however, said in a March 2 statement that the public school bill should include private school loans or it should be defeated.

In a conciliatory move, Administration forces decided to include provisions for long-term loans for private and parochial school construction in a separate bill to expand and continue the National Defense Education Act of 1958. This maneuver helped in the Senate to win passage for the general school-aid bill, but failed to have any effect in the House. The Senate bill, passed May 25, authorized $2,500,000,000 in grants to the states for operation, maintenance and construction of public schools and for teachers' salaries. In the House, however, the Rules Committee struck a fatal blow by voting 8 to 7 to table the measure along with two companion Administration bills to authorize loans and grants for colleges and to expand the Defense Education Act. The key man in the vote in the Rules Committee, which presumably had been 'stacked' for the Administration, was one of the Democratic regulars who usually went along with the White House. The defecting member, Representative James J. Delaney of New York, a Catholic representing a district composed mainly of members of his church, contended the bill discriminated against parochial schools. For that reason, he joined the seven conservative members on the committee—five Republicans and two Southern Democrats—to table all three bills.

Administration leaders, after a series of strategy meetings, decided nevertheless to make another try. To make the proposal more attractive, they decided to limit the bill to one year of construction aid costing $325,000,000, to areas with particularly acute enrollment problems. It came before the House under special procedures, but the House voted 242 to 169 against considering it.

With that fight over, Congress went ahead with legislation for extensions of the Defense Education Act and of an expiring program of grants to public schools in communities with heavy concentrations of federal military or civilian personnel. The Administration had hoped to keep the extensions to a single year, in the hope of using the popular programs as levers for action on general school aid in 1962, but they failed again. The bills extended both programs for two years with the subsequent prospect that no general school-aid bills would again be considered until 1963.

The Economy.

Minimum Wage.

The President's proposals on raising the minimum wage were among several included in his economic recovery message of February 2. With unemployment at a 20-year high of 5,700,000 or about 6.8 per cent of the labor force, the President noted he had given top priority to actions designed to spur the nation's economy. The President had asked Congress to raise the minimum wage to $1.25 an hour and to extend wage-and-hour coverage to an additional 4,300,000 workers. The House in March approved a watered-down version, raising the minimum to $1.15 for covered workers and extending a $1 minimum to 1,300,000 retail workers. But the Senate went along in substance with the President's requests, and succeeded in pressing its views on the House. As finally agreed on by both houses on May 3, the bill raised the minimum wage to $1.25 an hour in steps varying from two to four years, and brought 3,624,000 additional workers under the law.

Depressed Areas.

Bills to provide loans and grants for redeveloping economically depressed industrial and rural areas have long run into trouble either in Congress or in the White House. Congress, for example, twice passed such bills in recent years only to see them vetoed by former President Eisenhower. This year, the bill's supporters found a friend in the White House.

As signed by the President, the latest version of such legislation provided $394,000,000 to help areas with chronic unemployment. Despite opposition from the congressional conservatives, the bill authorized that the program be financed by direct Treasury financing—the so-called back door device, which precludes the need for regular annual congressional appropriations.

Unemployment Compensation.

As another anti-depression measure, the Congress approved a bill providing for up to thirteen weeks of supplemental benefits to jobless workers. However, it rejected the President's request for a permanent increase in the unemployment compensation tax base. Instead, it authorized only a temporary increase in the tax rate.

Housing.

The housing bill that evolved from this session was the most liberal since the landmark 1949 act and represented one of the Administration's most successful legislative efforts. The $5,000,000,000 measure gave the President almost everything he asked for in his March 9 housing message, and, in some cases, considerably more.

The bill extended and expanded existing programs, but it also broke some new ground. It established a moderate-income housing program, including 35-year, government-guaranteed mortgages on single family sales housing. It also authorized $50,000,000 in federal grants for urban 'open space' development and $75,000,000 for federal aid for urban mass transportation systems.

In addition, the program covered college dormitory construction loans, 100,000 additional public housing units and certain community facilities, and farm housing programs.

Taxes.

It seems that nothing is more inevitable at congressional sessions in recent years than the extension for another year of the current corporate income tax rate, excise tax rates on automobiles, liquor and tobacco, and taxes on local telephone calls and passenger transportation. Not to be different, the 87th Congress went along with its predecessors and performed the inevitable. Moreover, to meet an estimated increase in the federal share of completing the 41,000-mile interstate highway system, Congress set the federal tax on gasoline and diesel fuel at 4 cents a gallon for the duration of the interstate program. It also raised the taxes on tires, tubes, and retread rubber, and on heavy trucks and buses. The highway bill, incidentally, also included a controversial provision extending the billboard control program for two years until 1963.

Social Security payroll taxes were also increased by  of 1 per cent for employees and employers to pay for improvements in that program. The major changes, primarily along the lines suggested by the President, provided for increased minimum benefits for retired workers from $33 a month to $40, and gave men the option, already available to women, of collecting retirement benefits on a reduced scale at the age of 62 instead of 65.

The President lost out, however, in efforts to make other revisions in tax laws, including a business tax credit to spur expansion, a tightening of rules on expense account deductions, and the closing of loopholes in tax treatment of foreign income. The House Ways and Means Committee held extensive public and private meetings on these proposals, but put off action until next year.

National Security.

There is no doubt that if Congress handled all legislation with the dispatch it often gives bills dealing with the nation's security, its sessions would be considerably shorter. Time after time, Congress gave quickly and willingly to the President's proposals for strengthening military strength in the face of the Berlin crisis. Moreover, it provided for the first major civil defense program since World War II and a stepped-up space program aimed in part at getting an American to the moon first.

Record outlays for peacetime—some $46,600,000,000— were approved for the military and civil defense. The military funds included almost all the $3,500,000,000 the President requested in additional funds in his Berlin crisis speech on July 25 and $695,000,000 more than the President had asked for long-range-bomber development and production.

On civil defense, a total of $207,000,000 was provided for shelter surveys and other civil defense projects. The funds went to a new Pentagon office the President created to take over most civil defense functions previously carried out by the office of civil and defense mobilization.

To help along the projected moon flights and other space projects, Congress also went along with virtually all of the Administration's requests for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The agency received $1,670,000,000 to help speed up the manned space programs and those for space satellites for weather observation, communications, intelligence, and military defense.

As another outgrowth of the President's July 25 crisis speech, Congress on July 31 completed action on a bill giving him discretionary authority to call up 250,000 Ready Reservists for up to 12 months and to extend tours of duty of personnel on active duty also for a period of up to 12 months.

Foreign Affairs.

Though billions were approved to wage war, if need be, Congress also spent much time on proposals to wage peace. These ranged from the perennial foreign aid requests, to the creation of a Peace Corps of volunteers to aid developing countries and a new disarmament agency.

Foreign Aid.

The fight in the 87th Congress over the foreign aid legislation took on a different hue than in past years because of President Kennedy's effort to win long-term financing for the program. His failure to do so was a notable example of the difficulties he encountered throughout the session whenever he tried to persuade Congress to adopt new legislative concepts.

The President had sought authority to borrow from the Treasury for five years to finance long-term development loans to underdeveloped countries. This would have obviated the need for annual congressional appropriations for that aspect of the foreign aid program. The proposal stirred the conservatives to action. They attacked the proposal as 'back-door spending' designed to preempt traditional congressional prerogatives. The Administration did win Senate approval of the five-year plan and thereby scored a victory over conservatives there led by Senator Harry F. Byrd, Virginia Democrat. But the House conservatives, again showing their muscle, knocked the provision from the bill. In what was described as a compromise, Congress finally authorized itself to appropriate $7,200,000,000 for development loans over the five-year period. But there was no guarantee Congress would actually appropriate that much when the Administration returned each year with its foreign aid proposals. Despite the lack of this guarantee, the President thought he had achieved in part his basic goal to make long-term loan commitments to developing countries in advance of appropriations.

As for the overall program, Congress voted $3,914,600,000 in foreign aid appropriations. The Administration, which had fought hard for a higher figure, termed the result satisfactory. Nevertheless, the total was $900,000,000 below the President's original request of $4,812,000,000.

In addition, the President won approval of the so-called Alliance for Progress program for Latin America, broached to Congress by former President Eisenhower before he left office and embraced by President Kennedy. Congress voted the full $500,000,000 for the program of social and economic cooperation in South America and $100,000,000 for Chilean reconstruction and rehabilitation.

Disarmament.