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At week's end Pope John XXIII also aided the cause by issuing an encyclical (see RELIGION) that called cooperation between advanced and underdeveloped nations one of the world's greatest social needs. But the program's real push came, ironically, from Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, whose continuing threats have stirred up an atmosphere of crisis that makes a strong foreign aid program a near certainty. Observed one aid advocate: "The Soviets every year seem to pull the same stuff that snaps everyone to attention and gets this bill passed."
No Compromise. The Administration was so buoyed by events that it made no effort to pressure foot-dragging committees in the House and Senate into rushing the bill along. Time was running in the bill's favor, and the opposition appeared to be crumbling. Representative Tom Pelly of Washington was able to muster only 83 of the House's 437 members on a petition protesting the President's plan to borrow $7.3 billion directly from the Treasury—a tactic designed to bypass the authority of the penny-pinching House Appropriations Committee. Even respected Republican Treasury Secretary Douglas Dillon argued that such "backdoor spending" was an economically sound procedure, used by every President since Herbert Hoover to support some 20 federal agencies. Aid Opponent Passman felt so sure that he did not have enough votes to block the bill in his Appropriations Subcommittee that he called off hearings. Kennedy himself felt confident enough to reject a compromise on the five-year commitment offered by Minnesota's Republican Representative Walter Judd. Suddenly, it seemed, the President could expect to get most of the foreign aid program he has been seeking.