Special Message to the Congress on the Mutual Security Program.

To the Congress of the United States:

I herewith transmit recommendations relating to the mutual security program which, I am deeply convinced, are essential to the efforts of the United States in the fields of international relations and national defense. These recommendations are the outgrowth of painstaking analyses of present mutual security programs, recent world developments and alternative methods of protecting the nation's interests.

Our mutual security program is based upon the sound premise that there can be no safety for any of us except in cooperative efforts to build and sustain the strength of all free peoples. Above all else communist strategy seeks to divide, to isolate, to weaken. The mutual security program is an important means by which to counter this strategy. It helps us to bolster strength in remote areas which are, nevertheless, vital to our own security. It is mutually advantageous to our own economy and to the economies of the countries to which we give assistance. It meets the communist menace at the front line with practical and effective measures. It serves the ultimate purpose of our foreign policy by expanding the area of hope and freedom, and thus it helps to secure the foundations of a free and peaceful world.

For the new program I urge that the Congress authorize new appropriations to the President in the amount of approximately $3,500,000,000. This amounts to approximately a 40% reduction in two years. Further reductions in the authorized program at this time, in view of the continuing threat to our national safety, would be unjustified and unsafe. Because the new program is in large measure a continuation of existing programs, its success requires reauthorization for expenditure of funds that are still unexpended.

Measured in terms of functions, about $2,748.4 million of the $3.5 billion of new appropriation authority, or 79%, is for programs essentially of a military nature. Of this amount, $1,580 million is for Mutual Defense Assistance (principally military end-items and training); $945 million is for Direct Forces Support (primarily for supplies and equipment for forces in Southeast Asia and the western Pacific); and $223.4 million is for Mutual Defense Support (principally to sustain abnormally large but essential military programs in certain countries). The remainder consists of $241.3 million for programs in Korea, $256.4 million for Development Assistance (largely in the Near East and South Asia), $131.6 million for Technical Cooperation, and $70.5 million for other programs, including contributions to voluntary programs of the United Nations.

Dividing the $3.5 billion into areas, approximately $900 million is for Europe, $570 million for the Near East, Africa and South Asia, $1,770 million for the Far East and the Pacific, and $47 million for Latin America. Some $165 million is requested for non-regional programs.

Today the continued ruthless drive of communist imperialists for world domination places an especially high premium on our maintenance of close relations with friendly nations. We must provide military assistance to some nations, especially to those of strategic military significance which are willing to join in the common defense effort. A major part both of the nearly $5 billions of expenditures in the current fiscal year and the appropriations authorization requested for the coming year is for programs of a military nature. These amounts are, indeed, substantial. But a common defense system evolved in concert with allies is far less expensive to our people and far more effective for the free world than a defense structure erected only on our soil, consisting only of our forces. Such amounts, moreover, are minuscule compared to the cost of global war which these programs help to prevent.

Recent events in Southeast Asia have created grave uncertainty. The security of that region and the interests of the United States and its allies there are clearly endangered. It is, therefore, critically important that the Congress authorize the appropriation of funds needed to provide military and other assistance to this area and that authority be granted to adjust the use of these funds to rapidly changing conditions.

I also recommend continuance of limited authority to transfer, for use in another geographic area or for a different purpose, funds appropriated for one geographic area or purpose. Other forms of flexibility which proved their value during the past year should also be continued. The United States must be in a position to employ these programs with the utmost speed and precision to accomplish our goals under the swiftly-shifting circumstances of the world.

Our country's participation in Technical Cooperation programs must be vigorously advanced. Certain fundamentals are essential to their success. First, they should provide experts and know-how rather than large amounts of funds or goods, although they should not be allowed to fail due to lack of necessary teaching and demonstration equipment. Second, they should be tightly adjusted to the needs of the host countries. Third, they should be so administered as to reach as many people as possible, helping them raise their own standards of living and solve their own problems. Technical Cooperation programs now before the Congress are based on these fundamentals. These programs are our most effective counter-measure to Soviet propaganda and the best method by which to create the political and social stability essential to. lasting peace.

Three months ago I advised the Congress that economic assistance on a grant basis should be terminated as swiftly as our national interest would allow. This concept underlies the new programs. In Europe economic assistance is recommended only for a few local programs of especial importance. As rapidly as feasible in our relationships with other countries, these programs are being supplanted by more durable undertakings in the field of mutually profitable private investment and trade. As such trade and investment expands, the need for grant assistance will further diminish. But this expansion takes time and effort. This requires that in strategically located, underdeveloped areas of the world, some grant assistance must be continued for an additional period of time. Such assistance is also needed for certain countries which lack the economic capacity to establish and equip military forces needed for the common defense.

Notwithstanding the continuing need for such grants, we must strive constantly toward relationships with our friends which are more satisfactory, both to them and to us, than grant assistance. This legislation should, therefore, reserve for loans not less than $100 million of the fiscal year 1955 funds. Such loans would be made where there is reasonable chance of repayment in dollars or in local currencies, and should be extended in a manner that would not substantially impair a country's capacity to borrow from private banking sources, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, or the Export-Import Bank. This is a vital step toward the general replacement of grant economic assistance. We shall achieve this goal as quickly as world conditions and our national welfare permit.

In the administration of the mutual security program, agricultural surpluses will be used to strengthen the economies of friendly countries and to contribute in other ways to the accomplishment of our foreign policy objectives. We shall also attempt to use other products of our farms and the output of our industries whenever their use is consistent with the essential objectives of the program, after taking into account such factors as availability, price and quality. In the conduct of these and other mutual security programs a Foreign Operations Administration performs a necessary function and should be continued.

The United States has chosen carefully from among many alternatives in order to chart a sound course in the world.

We have chosen to build defenses with our allies rather than go it alone, because we are convinced that this course is more effective and less costly.

We have chosen to help develop and expand world markets, because we believe that this course will strengthen the economies of all free nations, including our own.

We have chosen to exchange technical knowledge and ideas with our friends, because we believe that course will go far toward countering the effects of communist propaganda, while at the same time promoting peace through improved political and economic stability.

Having embarked upon these courses of action, we shall follow them through. We did not choose the gigantic struggle now endangering the world, but surely this is clear: During periods when the contest is hardest, we must not falter, we must not abandon programs of positive action. Instead, at such a time, we must intensify sensible and positive action.

This program of mutual security is such action; it is one of our most effective, most practical, least costly methods of achieving our international objectives in this age of peril.

I therefore strongly urge enactment of mutual security legislation along the lines I have herein generally outlined.

DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER