64 



development, were presented in support of the measure as a means of 

 strengthening defenses against overt Communist penetration. 



Although both the executive branch and the Congress saw the 

 technical assistance program as inherently experimental, the experi- 

 mental character of the program seemed to serve as justification for 

 setting it in motion without exhaustive intellectual underpuming, 

 rather than the reverse. Neither the Congress nor the Administration 

 attempted to exhaust the sources of relevant information which might 

 have revealed pitfalls in the design and implementation of the pro- 

 gram, and ways of avoiding them. Many witnesses, particularly 

 those supplied by the Administration, voiced uncritical exi)ectations 

 about successes to be achieved from the ajjplication of science and 

 technology to any developmental program. America's arsenal of tech- 

 nical knowledge, that had served so well in the war against the Axis, 

 was regarded as a iniiversal panacea in the campaign to raise the tech- 

 nological level of laggmg economies. Physical and social scientists, and 

 experienced participants in previous tJ.S. technical assistance pro- 

 grams, might have contributed information to qualify these optimistic 

 views. Such information was chculating within the scientific com- 

 miniity and current journals during the 18 months while the policy was 

 before the Congress. But members of the scientific community were 

 not mvited, and did not take the mitiative, to bring their coiuisel to 

 the decisionmakers. The scientific and technical problems of under- 

 development were not sharply defined, nor were the scientific and 

 technical requisites of an effective technical assistance policy. 



II, Central Issues of Point IV as Seen by Congress and 



THE Administration 



Other issues than the mechanics of exporting technology occupied 

 most of the testimony and debates during the 18 months of considera- 

 tion of the measure. These issues centered on political justification of 

 the new program, the role of private business and the need for guar- 

 antees for overseas investment, and a counterproposal for a com- 

 mission to study the need for technical assistance. 



Political justification 



Following his maugural address and his July 1949 technical assistance 

 message, tlie President undertook to build a consensus for his proposal 

 in the Congress. A program of teclniical assistance would need to 

 be shown to be feasible, beneficial, and combined with low^-risk 

 exports of capital so as to be most effectual at least cost to the tax- 

 payer. Of particular importance as justification was the national 

 security as measured by the benefits to be received by the containment 

 of communism and improvement of the availability of strategic and 

 critical materials. For instance, the Secretary of State, Dean Acheson, 

 testified in 1950 on the development bill before the Senate Foreign 

 Relations Committee: 



This legislation * * * is a security measure. And, as a security measure, it is 

 an essential arm of our foreign policy, for our military and economic security is 

 vitally dependent on the economic security of other peoples * * *. Economic 

 development will [also] bring us certain practical material benefits.* 



' statement of Secretary of State Dean Acheson. In U.S. Congress. Senate. Committee on Foreign Rela- 

 tions. Act for International Development. Hearings before the * * * 81st Cong., 2fl sess., Mar. 30 and Apr. 

 3, 1950. (Washington, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1950), p. 5. 



