1304 



two sources: (1) the increased likelihood of confrontation between 

 rich and poor caused by political, economic, and social differences ; and 

 (2) world competition for vital mineral resources, the main sources of 

 which are largely located in the LDCs. 



Instahility : Source of Conflict and 2'ension. — President Nixon ex- 

 pressed an oft-repeated truth voiced by foreign policy specialists and 

 students of development when he said in his 1973 foreign policy report 

 to the Congress : ". . . an increased pace of development is essential. 

 Unless substantial progress occurs — through efforts by developed and 

 developing nations alike — the stability of many countries and regions 

 can be jeopardized as essential needs of people go unsatisfied." ^®^ In 

 the mid-1960's, Dr. Kidd had warned : "If the gap does not narrow over 

 the long run, the prospect of reduction of world tensions is dim." ^^^ 

 In an appearance before House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the 

 occasion of a review of national security policy, Mr. Robert R. Nathan, 

 a consultant economist and development specialist, warned of the con- 

 sequences for American security if the aggravated ills of the LDCs 

 were not attended to. Alluding to the outbursts of racial violence in the 

 United States against historic injustices long ignored, he went on to 

 observe that Americans had learned that "great and growing gaps 

 between the haves and have-nots are not conducive to happy and secure 

 relationships among individuals or communities or groups within our 

 own society." The Nation had responded belatedly, he said, to that 

 "relative insecurity." He then warned : 



. .-. if gaps persist and increase, as they tend to grow in absolute terms be- 

 tween the advanced nations such as the United States and the less developed 

 nations, we will have a very distressing element of insecurity and there may 

 come a time when American embassies and consulates and American ships and 

 airplanes and American tourists may not be secure in any of the nations in the 

 less developed world where there is terrible privation.'™*' 



In a lecture not many months later Mr. Charles W. Yost, a veteran 

 American diplomat and foreign policy analyst for The Christian 

 Science Monitor^ deplored what he saw as a tendency in the Nixon 

 Administration to downgrade the LDCs and the North-South prob- 

 lems and to become excessively preoccupied with relations between 

 East and West. Ignoring the LDCs, he warned, would allow animosi- 

 ties to build up and situations to emerge that could lead to tensions 

 and wars bound to involve the United States. Yost expressed concern 

 over the disproportion in priorities and the dismal prospects for the 

 future if present policy of ignoring the LDCs continued.^®^ 



Algerian Conference of Nonaligned LDCs. — That these warnings 

 had substance and that the feelings against the advanced countries do, 

 indeed, run deep in the LDCs is evident by the proceedings of the 

 Fourth Conference of Non- Aligned Nations meeting in Algiers dur- 

 ing September 1973. Delegates from 76 LDCs, representing the "over- 

 whelming majority of mankind," as Algerian President Houari 

 Boumedienne said, conferred for 5 days. The proclaimed "Spirit of 

 Algiers" was in reality a spirit of confrontation. President Boume- 

 dienne made this clear when in an opening speech he outlined a plan 



788 President Nixon's Foreign Policy Report to Congress, 1973, p. 141. 



■^89 UNESCO, Final Report of the Conference on the Application of Science and Technology 

 to the Development of Latin America, 1965, n. 184. 



■^ Hearing-Symposium, House Foreign Affairs Committee, National Security Policy and 

 the Changing World Power Alignment, 1972, p. 202. 



'1 Lecture in Washington, D.C., Jan. 25, 1973. 



