Provisions Aiming to Check Egypt Dropped from Foreign Aid Bill

The Administration’s new Foreign Aid bill, as requested by the President and introduced in the Senate by Chairman J.W. Fulbright, of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, would delete clauses denouncing religious bias, boycotts, and blockades as practiced by the Arab states. It would also eliminate expressions in the present law against aiding countries like the United Arab Republic, which use their own funds to buy Soviet arms, it was learned here today.

These clauses were voted last year by Congress to furnish guidelines to Congressional thinking. They were not mandatory parts of the law, because they were subject to the discretion of the Executive Department. The State Department opposed the clauses as offensive to the Arabs, and failed to implement them.

The Administration bill would delete the portion of the current Act for International Development, which states: “The Congress further declares that any distinction made by foreign nations between American citizens because of race, color, or religion in the granting of, or the exercise of, personal or other rights available to American citizens is repugnant to our principles.”

Also eliminated would be the clause, aimed at the United Arab Republic, stating: “It is the sense of Congress that, in the administration of these funds, great attention and consideration should be given to those countries which share the view of the United States on the world crisis and which do not, as a result of United States assistance, divert their own economic resources to military or propaganda efforts, supported by the Soviet Union or Communist China, and directed against the United States or against other countries receiving aid under this Act.”