Message to the Congress Transmitting Annual Report on the Foreign Assistance Program.

To the Congress of the United States:

I am proud to transmit the Annual Report on the Foreign Assistance Program for Fiscal Year 1968.

The year's most significant development was the sharpened focus of our aid program on the priority problems of food and population.

During the 12 months covered by this report, major breakthroughs in food production occurred in the less developed countries.

--Record harvests were achieved in Pakistan, Turkey, and the Philippines. In India food grain harvests jumped to nearly 100 million tons, 10 percent above the previous record.

--Total food output in the developing countries rose 7 percent, the largest increase on record.

United States economic aid played a major role in this Green Revolution. Our programs encouraged more effective farm price policies, helped to extend irrigation and establish farm credit systems, and provided technical assistance, fertilizer, pesticides and tools that farmers need to take full advantage of the new "miracle" seeds.

Many less developed nations are now establishing family planning programs. During fiscal 1968 the Agency for International Development committed $35 million to help them carry out these programs. This was nine times more than AID devoted to population programs during the previous year.

This report records the continuing concentration of American aid in relatively few countries where it can be most effectively used to help others help themselves. Fifteen nations accounted for 84 percent of total economic commitments by AID during the year. They were Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Dominican Republic, India, Indonesia, Korea, Laos, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Pakistan, Panama, Thailand, Turkey, and Vietnam.

Another country, Iran, achieved self-support during the fiscal year and the United States AID mission there was formally closed.

Among the most helpful signs of our times are the breakthroughs being made by the less developed countries in food production, and the programs they have launched in the field of family planning.

It is our responsibility--and the responsibility of other more developed nations--to give their efforts firm support through our foreign assistance program. To do less would be to court catastrophe in a world growing smaller day by day.

LYNDON B. JOHNSON

The White House

January 1969