1297 



In the case of other selected LDCs, the disproportion may not be so 

 striking. But the overall impression given by the data in Table 36 is 

 that losses through brain drain of professionals from the LDCs 

 does tend to undercut the purposes of foreign aid and development 

 programs. And the costs to the LDCs are compounded by the annual 

 outflow of professionals and by the loss of their services to develop- 

 ment over subsequent years of their productive lives. Moreover, the 

 savings to the United States in educational costs constitute, as so 

 many students of brain drain have observed, a "reverse form of 

 foreign aid" from the LDCs to the United States. The judgments of 

 the past are, therefore, affirmed by the experience of the last 2 fiscal 

 years. 



DECLINING INTEREST IN FOREIGN AID AND DEVELOPMENT 



The interaction between brain drain and U.S. foreign policy has 

 been quickened by the declining interest in foreign aid and interna- 

 tional development, and continuing brain drain from the LDCs,- 

 notably in the medical and health professions. This interaction further 

 weakens the commitment to international development and broadens 

 the economic gap between the developed and developing countries of 

 the world. Thus the Nation now faces a situation in which foreign 

 aid is downgraded, brain drain from the LDCs ignored, and the grow- 

 ing breach between rich and poor disregarded. (A countervailing 

 force in the decline in interest in Government-sponsored foreign aid 

 and international development is the expansion of American-based 

 privately organized multinational corporations, discussed above in 

 Chapter VL)^«9 



Foreign policy observers, Government officials, and former and 

 present policymakers, have publicly recorded their dismay at the de- 

 clining interest in the Nation's commitment to development. In 1971, 

 Caryl P. Haskins, then president of the Carnegie Institution of Wash- 

 ington, observed that the Ignited States had made its lowest contribu- 

 tion to foreign aid since 1963 : Less than half of 1 percent of GNP, the 

 lowest of any member nation of the Organization for Economic Co- 

 operation and Development.'^" President Nixon termed 1971 "a year 

 of crisis for foreign assistance" in his 1972 foreign policy message to 

 Congress, and proceeded to record declining congressional concern.'^^^ 

 In his 1973 message the President expressed similar doubts about the 

 Nation's support for foreign aid.''^^ Before the House Foreign Affairs 

 Subcommittee on National Security Policy and Scientific De- 

 velopments in June 1972, Dean Rusk, former Secretary of 

 State, reminded his listenei-s that during the Korean War 

 the United States had maintained its foreign aid programs 

 with 3.5 percent of the Nation's GNP. "Today," he said, 

 "it is very difficult ... to get one-half of 1 percent for foreign aid." 

 And he added : "I agree with you foreign aid is in trouble. . . ." "^ 

 Robert S. McNamara, President of the World Bank, noted that the 



760 ggp p 229. 



"" Caryl P. Haskins, "Science and Policy for a New Decade," Foreign Affairs 49, (January 

 1971). p. 248. 



'■^ President Nikon's Foreign Policy Message to Congress of 1972, pp. 73-76. 



'"^President Nixon' • Foreign Policy Report to Congress of 1973, p. 141. 



"3 U.S. Congress, House, "Committee on Foreign Affairs, National Security Policy and 

 the Changirg World 'ower Aligmnent, Hearing-Symposium befort^ the Subcommittee on 

 National Sf""- rity P-^. oy and Scientific Develo^^'rients, 92d Cong., 2d sess., 1972, p. H,?" 

 (H^ iftet d a ^earir Symp am. He ■ Foreien Affairs Committee, Nnf< 



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