79 



or solving a problem such as malaria or water supply that interfered 

 yvith. U.S. procurement of these materials. The relevance of these small 

 II AA projects for the more comprehensive and ambitious point IV 

 program is not evident. However, they were enthusiastically reviewed 

 as e\adence of the validity of the concept and the competence of U.S. 

 administrators to employ them. For instance, regarding IIAA, the 

 State Department said: 



These programs have in effect demonstrated the practical vaUdity of the prin- 

 ciple of technical assistance to underdeveloped areas which under the point 4 pro- 

 gram will be expanded in volume scope, and in area of application * * *.^* 



Before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Oscar R. Ewing, 

 then Administrator of the Federal Security Administration which had 

 responsibility for public health and welfare measures in this country, 

 emphasized the same point: 



We have this kind of knowledge and experience in greater abundance than any- 

 other nation on earth. It is our most precious asset and, at the same time, our 

 cheapest exportable commodity. 



We in the Federal Security Agency have been engaged in large-scale programs 

 of technical assistance in health, education, and social security for a long while. 

 The preservation and development of human resources is our business. We deal 

 in the very fields that are fundamental to the point 4 program. By long and ex- 

 tensive experience both at home and abroad, we have learned that expert technical 

 guidance in these fields is often the key to the solution of problems which seem at 

 first glance to be insoluble. * * * In our cooperative programs with the other 

 American Republics, in helping the less developed countries in this hemisphere 

 to improve their health, education, and social services througli advice and training 

 of their personnel, our experts have learned a great deal. They have developed 

 the sometimes delicate techniques of this function to a high degree. I believe our 

 staffs are admirably equipped with knowledge, experience, and prestige for the 

 task of developing and operating projects of technical assistance in these fields 

 under the point 4 programs * * *. 54 



Criticism has been expressed regarding the operations of these 

 American programs and the subsequent consideration of them by 

 legislators and Presidents in the fasliioiiing of the point TV program. 

 In his study of the major foreign assistance programs of the United 

 States before 1950, and particularly of the technical assistance pro- 

 grams of the Interdepartmental Committee on Scientific and Cultural 

 Cooperation in Latin America, Philip Glick stated that although 

 these programs were full of inadequacies, proponents of the new 

 technical assistance programs gave little consideration to their merits 

 and failures : 



What influence did these forenmners exert on the administration of the 

 Government's technical cooperation program? Directly, surprisingly little. There 

 is almost no evidence that this early experience was studied bj- the organizers of 

 the bilateral program as a guide on what to do and to avoid. Only in the most 

 general way, through vag\ie recollection and fragmentary report, dia these private 

 pioneer efforts and similar activities in other regions of the world help to shape 

 their governmental successors. In fact, no systematic accounts of these earlier ef- 

 forts were then available for such scrutiny. But they contributed greatly to the 

 W'orld climate of opinion on international technical cooperation. ^^ 



53 Department of State. "Point 4: Cooperative Program for Aid in tlie Development of Economically 

 Underdeveloped Areas" (rev. January 1950), op. cit., p. 18. 



" Statement of Hon. Oscar R. Ev?ing, Federal Security Administrator. In House. International Tech- 

 nical Cooperation Act of 1949, Hearings, op. cit., pp. 66, 68. 



55 Philip M. Glick. "The Administration of Technical Assistance: Growth in the Americas." (Chicago, 

 University of Chicago Press, 1957), p. 5. 



