appropriations of military assistance funds. (This would have changed the three-year authorization adopted by Congress in 1959.) (2) Eliminate the ceiling of $55,000,000 on military assistance matériel supplied to Latin American countries annually. 53 (3) Repeal the clause (in Section 105 (b) (4) of the Mutual Security Act) which required the President to make a specific determination before assistance could be granted for internal security purposes. 54 As a specific approach to the problem, the Administration presented a program that called for a total of $74,100,000 in appropriations, which it proposed to divide as follows: matériel matériel and services, $54,600,000; training, $13,800,000; credit sales, $4,200,000; and excess stocks, countries; (5) supply dual-purpose equipment to be utilized in economic developments; and (6) furnish training assist ance. ce. 55 Although Congress eventually authorized an overall $76,118,000 appropriation for Latin American military assistance for the Fiscal Year 1962 program56 (including training and other items not previously considered within the established ceiling), it fixed an annual ceiling of $57,500,000 (later reduced to $55,000,000) on the value of grant programs of defense articles for American Republics.57 At the same time Congress not only refused to accede to the Administration's request to repeal legislation requiring specific presidential action on cases involving the supply of military aid of an internal security type, but strengthened the statutes to direct the President to report each such action to the Speaker of the House of Representatives. 58 With the passage of Public Law 87-195 of 4 September 1961, Congress, at the request of the Administration, for the first time since the inclusion of the Latin American nations within the scope of the Mutual Security Act of 1951, changed the avowed purpose of the military assistance program for Latin America from that of hemispheric defense to that of assisting the different nations to maintain their internal security. 59 Henceforth the hemispheric defense mission was to be confined to the relative minor (from the point of view both of emphasis and funds committed thereto) phase of antisubmarine warfare. In this area the United States would provide assistance to Latin American navies to strengthen their capabilities for coastal patrol and harbor security operations.60 Armed with the new legislation, the Administration proceeded to implement a three-pronged military assistance program for Latin America that stressed internal security and civic action (authorization for which was contained in Section 505 (b) of Public Law 87-195) and gave some attention to an antisubmarine effort on a hemispheric defense basis.61 In taking this action, the Kennedy Administration continued what it had begun while it waited for Congress to act. As early as August General Enemark revealed that the United States had changed its emphasis in its support of Latin American military organizations, when he testified that the United States was no longer furnishing jet combat aircraft or tanks to Latin American nations and that it was not supporting the operation of cruisers in any of them. Instead, he pointed out, it was emphasizing the support of transport aircraft, antisubmarine warfare capabilities, and combat engineer units.62 States doubled the number of infantry units and increased by more than one-half the number of air transport squadrons it was supporting, and doubled its training in counter guerrilla tactics.63 stressed: In specific terms, the new program "training, communications, transportation, and 1164 In civic action for the ground forces; training and air transport capacity for the air forces; and antisubmarine and coastal patrol effectiveness for the naval forces. the training area, emphasis was placed on "riot control, counterguerrilla operations and tactics, intelligence, public 1165 information, psychological warfare and counterinsurgency. Indicative of the relative importance given by the United States to the different aspects of the Latin American military assistance program was the way in which it proposed to allocate its expenditures in Fiscal Years 1965 and 1966. In the former it proposed to spend 52% of its appropriation on internal security programs, 24% on naval defense (antisubmarine operations), 15% for civic action purposes, and 9% for training and other miscellaneous 66 programs. In 1966 it proposed to spend 56% on internal security and 15% on civic-action projects.67 One of the more significant aspects of the U. S. mili tary assistance program for Latin America is that performed by the missions of the three branches of the Armed Services. This program, which today furnishes missions to 16 of the 20 Latin American countries, had its beginning early in this century with the assignment of military officers to assist with the training of the Cuban armed forces after Cuba gained its independence, 68 and was continued by two line officers of the U. S. Navy who in 1914 were authorized by Congress to take leave of absence to serve, at Brazilian request, as instructors in naval strategy and tactics in the recently founded Naval War College in Rio de Janeiro. 69 Perhaps influenced by these earlier experiences, Congress adopted Public Law No. 272 on 5 June 1920, an act that was to lay the groundwork for the military mission program, which today is a world-wide instrument of U. S. military influence. This legislation, today generally overlooked by congressional authorities and students of the subject, authorized the President "upon application from the foreign Governments concerned to detail officers of the United States naval service to assist the Governments of the Republics of South America in naval matters. . . ."70 |