The process of giving away U.S. money to strengthen friendly foreign governments sometimes seems to have a built-in mechanism of self-defeat.
More than three years ago American foreign-aid officials set about modernizing the transport system in struggling little Laos, a pastoral nation bordered by Red China and Communist North Viet Nam. Motives were high and the task seemed simple, but within months the project was bogged down in a mass of bribes, kickbacks and plain confusion.
Taking Favors. The first difficulty developed after Washington's International Cooperation Administration bought and shipped $1,500,000 worth of road-building and repairing equipment and signed up an American...
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