NO
IMPERIALIST STRINGS ATTACHED?
Does the U.S. State Department employ American surplus food shipments as blackmail in dealing with the governments of impoverished countries? To suggest the charge is generally sufficient to win a most. indignant denial plus the countercharge that the accusation is "just Communist propaganda."
In a March 19 dispatch from Washington, however, New York Times correspondent John W. Finney reports that "One United States condition for the resumption of surplus food aid to the United Arab Republic was restrictions on the production of Egyptian cotton..."
Finney was told about the "secret condition" by ."Congressional sources," who said it was one of the steps taken "to curb the accelerating arms race. in the Middle East."
According to this propaganda, the Beyptian government was selling a good part of its cotton crop to the Soviet Union and buying in exchange large shipments of arms. As a result, certain unnamed congressmen objected to sending surplus food to Egypt to relieve hunger and distress. They renewed their "criticism" when a new agreement: was recently signed by the Johnson administration to provide another $55,000,000 worth of surplus food.
"To help allay the criticism," continues Finney, "the Administration has privately informed some key Congressmen that President Nasser agreed that there would be no increase in cotton acreage in the 1966- 67 season over the previous year."
Finney reveals that "similar but looser restrictions on production have been included in past surplus-food agreements with the Egyptians. The terms of the new agreement were understood to be stiffer and more explicit; there was some surprise in American circles when President Nasser accepted them without objection."
To curb the arms race in the Middle East is no doubt a highly commendable objective. It is to be noted, however, that the U.S. . government has been participating in this arms build up -- but on the side of Israel. Moreover if the Egyptian government can be weakened militarily, it should be still easier to subject it to further imperialist pressure.
Last but not least, as the phrase goes, the unnamed congressmen, who doubtlessly all voted unanimously for the U.S. war budget in the biggest arms race in history, were probably not displeased with any agreément that could be wrung out of the Egyptian government to reduce the acreage of cotton production. If the unnamed... congressmen were to be named, would they turn out to be from the cotton-producing areas in the United States?
+11-
, WELSON