1276 



PERSISTING DIFFICULTIES AND DILEMMAS : DECLINING INTEREST IN 



FOREIGN AID 



The rhetoric for renewing the national commitment to international 

 development runs counter to the reality of a declining American in- 

 terest in foreign aid and the prevailing national mood of retrenchment 

 in international commitments. Evidence presented in the next chapter 

 on foreign policy implications of brain drain is reinforced by a recent 

 vote in the House of Representatives (248 to 155), rejecting the Ad- 

 ministration-sponsored bill for a new contribution to the World Bank's 

 International Development Association (IDA) to aid the economic 

 development of the world's poorest LDCs. The proposed contribution 

 would have been $1.5 billion spread over a 4-year period, out of a 

 total contribution from the wealthier advanced countries of .$4.5 bil- 

 lion. Mr. McNamara, President of the World Bank, termed the action 

 an "unmitigated disaster" for the world's poor. Richard L. Strout of 

 Th.e Chy^istian Science Monitor observed that the "House vote may kill 

 the international plan"; he added: "it was the first significant vote of 

 the new session, and it indicated a go-it-alone, isolationist mood of 

 Congress." "* A major factor in the House vote was growing disillu- 

 sionment with foreign aid in general, particularly as this issue came 

 under consideration at a time of a constriction of many Federal 

 domestic programs.^^^ 



A sustained attitude of withdrawal from international involvement 

 would seriously impede efforts to diminish the "pull" factor in brain 

 drain from the LDCs through development assistance. 



Declining Interest in Brain Drain as a Foreign Policy Issue. — A sec- 

 ond difficulty is the declining — indeed, as of early 1974, virtually non- 

 existent — interest in brain drain as a problem of American foreign 

 policy. Yet it is one of those enduring, if low-profile, issues that has 

 a great potential for mischief in this Nation's future relations with the 

 LDCs. Medical brain drain has generated scattered concern in some 

 quarters, such as the medical profession — which gives signs of becom- 

 ing increasingly concerned about the lowering of standards and the 

 evolution of a double-standard in American medicine — and among 

 aspiring medical students who are closed out of a career while the 

 deficit in medical manpower is being made up by doctors imported 

 from the LDCs. But in the public mind, brain drain is no issue; it 

 excites no concern. Even in current literature on development, brain 

 drain seems no longer to be a subject of active discussion. 



Popular and official indifference to the problem of brain drain de- 

 rives from the fact that the United States seems not to have suffered 

 direct injury to its interests, at least not visibly as was the case with 

 the oil embargo during 1973-74. In the past decade the United States 

 gained in educational savings and in filling manpower deficits by in- 

 flows of professional talent. The official view of the administration 



"!i Richard L. Strout, "Congress Smoot-Hawley, 1974," The Christian Science Monitor, 

 Feb. 1, 1974, p. 8. Similar concern was expressed by Marquis Chllds. See, "A Growing 

 Mood of Isolationism on the Hill," The Washington Post, Jan. 29, 1974, p. A19. 



Ti' The New York Times, Jan. 24, 1974. p. 1. Another key factor In the vote, according 

 to the Times, was the announcement by Rep. George H. Mahon (D-Tex.), chairman of the 

 Appropriations Committee, that he would not support the appropriation or funds for the 

 new contribution if it were authorized. The bill, he noted, would provide a higher level of 

 U.S. contribution. Mr. Mahon said he would not approve any more than was currently being 

 contributed and warned members that they would be wasting a politically unpopular vote 

 in supporting the bill, because the money would not be forthcoming. 



