Foreign Relations: Slamming the Door

Like President Eisenhower before him, President Kennedy thought for a while that it might be possible, by holding out the U.S. hand of friendship and financial aid, to lure such occasionally dissident Communist dictators as Yugoslavia’s Tito and Poland’s Wladyslaw Gomulka to the side of the West. But recent events have changed the President’s mind. Gomulka, following Moscow’s lead, moved toward partial mobilization of Poland’s armed forces, and warned that Poland would not “remain passive” in the Berlin crisis. And fortnight ago, at the conference of neutrals in Belgrade, Tito coolly excused Russia’s resumption of nuclear tests.

Last week, in response, Kennedy’s open door to the East slammed shut. U.S. offi cials announced that a proposed Tito visit to Washington was postponed indefinitely —as was action on Tito’s latest request for more U.S. aid. The Administration also said that Poland’s plea for more fiscal credits would be shelved. Then the Senate urged the President to withhold aid from any nation that shows little sympathy for U.S. policies.

For all their hostility, both Poland and Yugoslavia have profited handsomely from U.S. aid. Since 1957, when the Eisenhower Administration decided to assist Gomulka in his mild revolt against Stalinism, the U.S. has sold Poland $365 million worth of surplus agricultural commodities (paid for in zlotys, which can be used by the U.S. only in Poland itself), extended $61 million for machinery. In the past decade, Yugoslavia has received at least $1.5 billion in U.S. grants, plus $250 million worth of credits.