ustxtxb_obs_1960_06_10_50_00003-00000_000.pdf

An Internationalist Kennedy Gets Votes In LBJ’s New Mexico soil and water conservation and emergency douth assistance; He has supported the soil bank, and opposed making participation mandatory in return for crop price supports; He has favored increased REA loan funds, without letting Secretary of Agriculture Benson veto them, and has worked for REA co-ops since his first days in the House; He opposed barring conservation payments to any farmer who knowingly exceeded allotments on any crop; He favored the 1958 drive to bar indefinitely any reduction in price supports or acreage allotments for any farm.’ commodity; He voted for the demonstration food stamp program for distribution of food to the needy and for gifts of surplus farm commodities to underdeveloped countries for establishment of national food reserves in 1959. Voting records compiled by the covering all Johnson’s Senate votes on “legislation affecting rural electrification” give him a 39-7 favorable record. On the House side, for votes since 1943, REA gives him an 11-0 record. In 1955 one of his “13 points” was “Restore 90 percent of parity supports; extend the benefits to additional products; and possibly include a soil rental program.” In 1959 he called for “a new farm program,” but he has not come forward with this. FOREIGN Johnson’s credentials as an internationalist are unquestionable, although he is skeptical of disarmament and voted for the final version of the Bricker Amendment. He voted for lendlease during World War II, and after the war, for UN relief, the British loan, Election Reform Johnson has never been zealous for election reforms. Sen. Hennings of Missouri is the Senate’s liberal expert in the field. The Hennings bills against corrupt political practices always included both primaries and elections. Johnson, one eye on the South, opposed including primaries; that is, he favored exempting primaries in Southern oneparty states from federal election laWs. In the 84th and 85th Congresses, the Senate rules committee reported out bills covering primaries; but they were not called up for Senate action. In 1956, in a maneuver to thwart the Hennings drive for federal regulation of primaries, Johnson and Sen. Knowland, then the Republican minority leader, introduced a substitute bill co-signed by 85 other senators which did not cover primaries, but nothing more happened to it. In 1960 the Senate passed a clean elections bill. Johnson voted against including primaries, but by then he was on the losing side voted to include intrastate campaign fund committees, which have been used in Texas as a legal means of evading reporting gifts and . spending. In 1956, by the way, Johnson voted no on a proposed reform in presidential politics. The proposal was nomination of candidates by national primaries and election of the president by direct popular vote. The Senate vote was no, 69-13. Greek-Turkish aid, the European Recovery Plan for 16 Western European nations, the North Atlantic treaty, and Voice of America. Even in his tough 1948 sensational campaign, Johnson was saying, “Conceived and born in America, the United Nations is our greatest hope for maintaining the peace.” In 1950, when Sen. Connally proposed to add Point Four, technical assistance, to U.S. programs abroad, Johnson voted aye, and the important proposition carried, 37-36. U:S. attention drawn toward Asia by the Korean war, Johnson supported the Korea Mutual Defense Treaty, the Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty, and authority for the president to use troops to defend Formosa and to use economic and military aid in the Middle East. He is a,steady friend of the reciprocal trade acts, but he wants to cut loopholes in them to limit oil imports. He has ‘ voted for trade agreement extensions and favored elimination of “protectionist” provisions; he has opposed limiting cotton or farm imports. Dubious on Disarming Johnson does not seem inclined to takedisarmament seriously it is not a real possibility in his mind. Advocates of disarmament as a means by which nuclear tensions may eventually be eased will not take this lightly. Speaking in Galveston this year, Johnson said: “As long as there is America, we are going to have an Air Force, Army, Navy, and Marine Corps. We must always be on guard, we must be prepared and we must keep our powder dry.” Jim Kemp, reporter who covered the meeting, stated Johnson “said he is against junking Amer, ica’s Armed Forces, its nuclear weapons, or its overseas bases under any disarmament plan.” In Oklahoma City May 22, Johnson recalled that naval disarmament after World . War I failed to produce lasting peace. “Stack the rifles, ground the planes, scuttle the fleet, and communist aggression will not have been halted. It will not have been halted .until the world has disarmed hunger, illness, ignorance, and despair,” he was quoted. As of 1957 Johnson believed that American problems with the communist bloc will be solved by the application of “policies we already have in force”Marshall Plan, Truman Doctrine, Point Four, NATO. Johnson also seems leery of negotiating with Russians. The London Economist observed in late 1959, “There are reasons for thinking that his instincts make him suspicious of Mr. Eisenhower’s present attempt to negotiate with Mr. Khrushchev. It may well be that, if he were elected president, he would prove to share Mr. Dean Acheson’s views on the subject.” Johnson early earned a repu Billboard Control Johnson was not persuaded by the case for limiting commercial billboards on the federal highways in 1958. He voted for a motion, which lost, to permit signs pursuant to state law regardless of size if they were designed to give information in the specific interest of the general public. He voted against the entire section in the highway act of 1958 on billboard control; but by a 47-41 vote, the section was retained. tation as an advocate of more military power. In his 1948 campaign he told of his work for a 70-group Air Force. He voted, between 1953 and the present, to increase pilot training, aircraft purchases, Army appropriations, Marine appropriations, Air Force procurement funds, and missile research. He voted for Selective Service in 1941, and in 1959, he favored a four-year over a twoyear draft extension. He believes in a strong executive in military matters. He opposed limiting the President’s power to defend Formosa; opposed requiring the President ‘to tell Congress before using military force in the Middle East or to seek approval after he did so. 1954 ‘Lapse’ His own ideas in foreign policy include an international learning center in Hawaii and Puerto Rico, a “Liberty Bank” for foreign investment loans, and use of import policy to raise foreign oilworkers’ wages and foreign oil costs. Addressing the Independent Petroleum Assn. of America late in 1958, Johnson said the way to “equalize competition” among U.S. oil producers and foreign oil producers is to raise salaries of oil workers abroad. “We should insist upon the ‘splitting of those profits with the workers and -the people of those lands,” he said. From the internationalist point of view, Johnson’s worst lapse was his 1954 vote for the George version of the Bricker amendment to limit the treaty powers of the U.S. and curb President’s authority to enter into executive agreements. But for Sen. Kilgore’s late appearance, the amendment would have passed. That August he voted to cut mutual ‘security funds $500 million and foreign military aid $200 million. Thus 1954 was Johnson’s “lapse year” in internationalism. Perhaps he was affected that year by the opposition for re-election he received from Dudley Dougherty, then an all-out critic of foreign aid and internationalism. For Aid, But Has Doubts Except for 1954, Johnson has steadily supported foreign economic and military aid programs in the day-to-day Senate votes. He has generally resisted all cutting and crippling amendments to these programs. He has refused to go along with excluding either communist or fascist nations from U.S. aid programs where it is deenied there is a chance they can help the U.S. Recently he opposed requiring the President to submit detailed country by country budgets to Congress on foreign aid requests. He has favored larger contributions from the U.S. to the International Monetary Fund and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development. He advocated permitting the development loan fund under mutual security to borrow up to $1 billion a year for five years from the U.S. Treasury, a compromise after a long-term commitment had been stalemated. He favors giving U.S. farm surpluses to nations that need them. And he has steadily supported grants and loans for Asian economic development. In 1954, he voted for two foreign aid cuts; in 1955, for a cut of $10 million in economic aid to India; these seem out of character. Nevertheless, in 1956 Johnson began making statements which were skeptical of foreign aid: He told reporters the Administration would have to make “a compelling case to convince Congress of the need of economic aid and long-term commitments” and Special to the Observer SANTA FE, N.M. New Mexico’s 17-vote delegation to the Democratic national convention in Los Angeles will be generally favorable to Senator Johnson. It is uncommitted, but estimates range 14-3 to 10-7 for Johnson, the others for John Kennedy. However, Johnson forces have been mum on a comment made by Jack Beaty of Albuquerque, Sen. Kennedy’s state campaign manager, that “if a vote were taken of the state convention, you would find about 65 per cent for Kennedy and 35 per cent for Johnson.” LBJ backers lost ground fast in grass roots support during the month before New Mexico’s convention last week. Panic set in ‘after Sen. Kennedy unexpectedly touched down at Santa Fe’s airport the day before the convention. With support he had been receiving earlier in county conventions away from the Texas border, things were getting too hot for nervous Lyndonites. Effects were felt among New Mexico’s congressional delegation. Several weeks before the convention all four were for Johnson. However, only Rep. Tom Morris of Tucumcari and ‘Sen. Clinton Anderson openly endorsed him right up to convention time. Sen. Dennis Chavez was . comparatively quiet, and Rep. Joe Montoya declared “neutral.” Even Gov. John Burroughs reneged from his .stand of a few that many senators believe “our prestige was never higher and they can’t understand why we need $2 billion more in foreign aid.” In 1955 he had voted against the loan principle in foreign aid, but in 1957 he demanded an end of “foreign aid giveaways” and the substitution of technical assistance and loans. In his newsletter upon adjournment that year he said Congress “shifted away from the ‘giveaway’ concept of foreign aid to a sound respectable program of loans. It has been our experience that gifts create ill will and bad feeling.” Early in 1959 Johnson was threatening “reductions in substantial amounts” in the aid program and expressing light contempt for the GOP’s “spreading this money throughout the world.” In the fall, touring Texas, he boasted that Congress “cut more than a billion dollars from the President’s desires for loans and grants to other nations.” His votes continued to favor foreign aid, but his words indicated he is veering toward a more skeptical approach. He has not recognized distinctions between democratic, fascist, and communist satellite nations in voting for foreign aid. For instance, since 1953 he has opposed stopping aid to nations that trade with China, or to Yugoslavia and Poland; opposed the forbidding of barter of farm ‘surpluses with communist satellites; opposed striking out authority for the President to send aid to communist satellites in Europe; and opposed prohibiting sale of farm surpluses to any country that has not assbred the President it will’ not support any communist country warring with the U.S. In 1959 he opposed barring aid to countries that expropriate U.S.-owned property without adequate compensation. On the other hand, he has also opposed ‘eliminating aid to Franco Spain and Trujillo’s Dominican Republic. R.D. weeks earlier when he had pounded the drums for Johnson: he labeled himself “neutral.” Burroughs is from Portales, which is a part of New Mexico’s “little Texas.” Sam Rayburn came to the rescue of his Texas partner and avoided at least further’` embarrassment by striding ‘to the state convention platform and ‘pitching a few for LBJ. He spoke in very serious tones of coveted committee assignments New Mexico’s two representatives hold in Congress. Sen. Anderson earlier had listed representation in Congress by New Mexico, “a fairly small state out in the west: “A member of the appropriations committee in the Senate and one in the House; the chairmanship of the public works committee in the Senate and . . . the chairmanship of the interior and insular affairs committee in the Senate; a member of the interior and insular affairs committee in the House; membership on the space committees of both Senate and House . . . and finally, though the chairmanship of the joint committee on atomic energy must rotate to the House in accordance with existing law, I will be able to retain, if re-elected, a position of seniority and responsibility upon that important committee.” These words were heeded by the right people at Santa Fe. J. A. Chacon of Albuquerque, a member of the Bernalillo County delegation, by far the largest in the state and a delegation which favored Kennedy by 90 per cent, declared: “The state administration put the word to county chairmen, and many of them were on the state payroll. You’re not going to buck , the administration. But it still was a significant victory for Kennedy, and I can see it no other way. I would say 65 per cent of the people on the floor were for Kennedy.” Chacon, who lost a fight to replace his own county chairman and another national delegate who were pro-Johnson, identified the resolutions committee as proJohnson. The chairman was another man from “little Texas,” Earl Hartley of Clovis. Appointed by the chairman of the state Democratic central committee, Seaborn Collins of Las Cruces, a proponent of LBJ, the committee