Please, No Questions

NATO's Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, Lauris Norstad, flew into Washington, worked far into the night with Pentagon aides, conferred with President Eisenhower for two hours, left nothing undone in preparing for one of his most important duties: appearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to urge approval of the Administration's $1.8 billion military-aid program. But when he arrived on Capitol Hill, four-star General Norstad found a near-empty hearing room, with only two of the 15 members of the Foreign Relations Committee on hand to greet him.

Dutifully, Airman Norstad presented his case to Rhode Island's Democratic Senator Theodore Francis Green, 90, chairman of the once-great committee, and to New Jersey Republican H. Alexander Smith, 78. Norstad had hoped that his prepared statement would draw some penetrating questions about the job military aid does in building NATO and protecting Western Europe. Instead, weary old Alex Smith asked him what "SACLANT" meant. Norstad patiently explained that it meant, as it had for six years, Supreme Allied Commander, Atlantic. When Smith started to ask other questions, Green cut him off: "It is undesirable to have a long series of questions at this stage." Then, after sparring playfully with Norstad for photographers (see cut), spry old Teddy Green scurried off to one of the social engagements that he apparently considers the main job of the Foreign Relations Committee chairman. In this case, it was lunch with visiting West German Defense Minister Franz Josef Strauss.

General Norstad's reception was symptomatic of congressional lollygagging on both foreign aid and foreign trade. The Capitol Hill attitude was best summed up by one of the absent committee members, Montana's Mike Mansfield, who prides himself on being a leading Democratic light on foreign relations. "The Administration," said Mansfield last week, "is pushing foreign aid, and for that matter foreign trade, as paramount issues at the very moment the people are much more interested in unemployment compensation and public works." By way of showing that he stands second to none in taking care of the folks back home, Mike Mansfield put his great weight behind a $45,000 proposal to send the Flathead County (Mont.) High School's a cappella choir to the international fair in Brussels.

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