184. Editorial Note
On October 20, Vance Brand, Managing Director of the Development Loan Fund, announced that in light of the economic recovery of other industrialized nations and the U.S. balance-of-payments deficit, the Fund would begin to give priority to projects that financed U.S. goods and services. For text of his statement, see American Foreign Policy: Current Documents, 1959, page 1686.
Asked at his October 22 press conference in Augusta, Georgia, whether this represented a departure from past policy of purchasing commodities and equipment from free world sources, President Eisenhower stated: “This is not a turnaround, a reversal, or going in another direction. It is simply to point out that when we are making this money available, it’s dollars that’s being made available; and where it is feasible and reasonable, we want that money to be spent here.” (Ibid.)
Interest in this policy continued. In response to an inquiry at his October 28 press conference, Eisenhower commented further:
“What we say is that we are examining all of these procedures that we use in extending credit to the world to see whether or not we shouldn’t have some arrangements whereby our own trade, our own exports are increased.” (Ibid., page 1681)
On November 16, Herter explained to the National Foreign Trade Council in New York that the United States had no plans to apply the DLF policy to the International Cooperation Administration because ICA procurement operated under different circumstances and because such restrictions could hamper private enterprise in the recipient countries. Appropriate ICA projects, however, might be transferred to the Fund and would then fall under the new criteria. (Ibid., pages 30–36) Under Secretary of State Dillon reiterated these points at the November 19 Council on Foreign Economic Policy meeting. (Minutes of the 95th Council on Foreign Economic Policy Meeting; Eisenhower Library, CFEP Chairman Records, Papers Series, CFEP Minutes, 1959)
At his November 24 press conference, Herter asserted the policy had been promulgated not to prevent more severe congressional action, but because it was “a prudent step and not too vital a step from the point of view of trying to be of assistance in rectifying” the balance-of-payments situation. (Department of State Bulletin, December 14, 1959, page 861)