No matter how thin it is sliced, 1957 has been a half-baked congressional year. Accordingly, the Eisenhower Administration could hardly expect more than a half-loaf mutual security billand that, last week, was precisely what it was getting. A conference committee compromised differences between House and Senate foreign-aid bills by cutting them right down the middle.
President Eisenhower had asked Congress to authorize a $3,864,410,000 foreign-aid program for fiscal 1958 and, in a vital and farseeing change from past policy, had asked authority to spread $2 billion in repayable loans to underdeveloped countries over a three-year period. This departure from year-to-year development programing...