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~_~ - President Urges Congress To Act on Mutual Security Legislation On May 3 President Eisenhower sent to the Congress a message * #n awhich he urged action on certain pending legislation . Following is the por- tion of the message dealing with the Mutual Se- curity Program. During most of our Nation’s history, our growth was strongly influenced by two unique conditions. First, for more than a century and a half two great oceans protected us from the violent struggles of the Old World. Although in recent years we be- came engaged in two global wars, our relative isolation gave us months in which to sssemble, train, and equip our forces deliberately and un- molested. Second, from the very beginning, our Nation’s rapid expansion was enco by com- mercial and financial assistance from the nations of Europe. These countries provided us with valuable skills and the capita] needed to accelerate the development of our resources, industries, and commerce. These conditions have radically changed. America emerged from World War II as the mightiest nation in & free world that, in the main, was exhausted and crippled. Soon thereafter we came to realize that new weapons of great power, speed and range has markedly reduced the value of our ocean shield. Our homeland, in any future major war, would be a prime target, and our warn- ing time against surprise attack would be minutes, not months. Our security cannot now be achieved by methods and a level of effort believed adequate only a few years ago. In a world, moreover, in which an aggressive ideology drives ceaselessly to destroy human free- dom, it is now the United States to which aspir- ing free peoples, particularly in underdeveloped areas, must look, as America once did to others, for the technical knowledge and financial assist- ~ == = May 23, 1960 ance needed to help them strengthen “their econo- mies and protect their independence. Such changes as these gave rise to our mutual gecurity program, one of the most necessary and successful enterprises America has undertaken throughout her history. Started more than & decade ago, the program helped to save Greece, forestalled economic collapse in Turkey and West- ern Europe, supported the countries of the SEATO Alliance, sustained the strength and in- dependence of South Korea and the Republic of China, and made real progress, jn underdeveloped nations on five continents, jn combating disease, poverty, and suffering, and thus has strengthened the resistance of those areas to Communist pene- tration, propaganda, and subversion. Clear it is that the mutual security program provides the surest path by which America can lead to and sustain a durable peace with justice. Such a program serves the Nation at large rather than any particular locality, section or group. Only with difficulty, therefore, can its great rewards be measured by individual com- munities and citizens. It inevitably follows that in the annual contests over the public use of tax revenues, there is 8 tendency to bypass the needs of this vital security program in favor of domestic projects that, urged by special groups, achieve & measure of support far greater than their overall value to the Nation warrants. Understandable this tendency is, but I deem it a great disservice to America to indulge it. The security of our coun- try obviously demands that our mutual security pro be carried forward at an adequate level. I have asked new appropriations of $4.175 bil- lions for this program for the 1961 fiscal year. Nearly half of this—s sum one-twentieth of our’ own defense budget—is to assist the military forces of the free world, comprising 5 million sol- diers, 2,200 combatant ships, and 80,000 aircraft. I need not remind the Congress of the low cost at which this force for freedom is sustained as compared to the cost of an aircraft carrier, § squadron of jet bombers, or an Army or Marine Corps division in our own defense structure. me BF