70. Memorandum From Richard T. Kennedy of the National Security Council Staff to the President’s Deputy Assistant for National Security Affairs (Haig)1
SUBJECT
- Foreign Assistance
Enclosed is a quick summary of the effects of having no foreign aid bill or of having to operate on a continuing resolution authority.2 There also are enclosed a series of tables which show the current status of our programs.3 It is important to note that the obligation levels are in many cases far below the estimated requirements for the year. If we conclude that we may not be able to get a continuing resolution and that the aid bill also is dead for this year, we could push hard to get as much money obligated as possible between now and the time when the current continuing resolution expires (November 15 or December 1). This would have the obvious side effect, however, of seriously irritating some important powers on the Hill and thus might make any effort later to get a new bill more difficult. In any event, the foreign military sales obligations could not be significantly improved—the time required to get agreement with the recipient countries simply precludes any rapid action.
I also would emphasize that the biggest single problem with operating on a continuing resolution would be the Pakistan/India relief. The President is committed to increase our participation. We have borrowed from other accounts up to now to carry the program because, since there was no appropriation for this purpose last year, there is no existing continuing resolution authority specifically for it now. Thus we would be faced both with the problem of being unable to finance it further and also the serious effects on other programs (both development assistance and supporting assistance) from which funds already have been borrowed.
[Page 165]Two brief summary statements being used by Dr. Hannah as background for his press conference are attached also.4
- Source: National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, NSC Files, Subject Files, Box 323, Foreign Aid, Volume I 7/70-1971. No classification marking. Routed by Haig to Kissinger who wrote: “Reassure VN urgently.”↩
- Not printed. Enclosed was a 4-page paper entitled “Examples of impact if we have no continuing resolution authority.” The paper includes one paragraph each on Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, Jordan, India, Turkey, Colombia, Taiwan, Korea, Pakistan, Latin America, Thailand, Morocco and Ethiopia, Indonesia, Philippines, and Israel.↩
- Four of the five tables are printed. The table not printed is an eight-column tabulation, with 20 footnotes, that shows the 1971 authorizations and appropriations, by category, the FY 1972 appropriation request, and where prospective funding levels stood in three pieces of foreign assistance legislation in the House and the Senate.↩
- Not printed.↩
- May not total because of rounding.↩
- Includes $500 Jackson Amendment.↩
- Includes $500 Jackson Amendment.↩
- Authorizations and Appropriation Requests are the same.↩
- Jackson Amendment added $500 million for Israel FMS.↩