FOREIGN RELATIONS, 1950, VOLUME I


on U.S. resources for foreign aid have been limited to programs that
will meet most urgent and immediate needs. These programs have
therefore been-restricted to those fulfilling three broad purposes: (1)
investment to increase the production and facilitate the distribution
of critical materials directly needed for defense; (2) aid to strengthen
the defense effort of our allies; and (3) aid to enable governments
which are or can be expected to become friendly members of the free
world to win the confidence and support of their own peoples as a
solid foundation for political stability and national independence.
More specifically, United States economic assistance should also be
designed to reduce economic dependency of countries on the USSR
and its satellites in order to (a) curtail the volume of shipments of
items to those Communist dominated areas and (b) reduce availa-
bility of foreign currencies to the USSR for strategic purposes in
such areas as Southeast Asia and Australia. To reduce the drain on
U.S. resources, aid programs have been held to the minimum be-
lieved necessary to effect these purposes.
                  THE CIVILIAN DEFENSE PROGRAM
  12. The civilian defense program should contribute to a reasonable
assurance that, in the event of war, the United States would survive
the initial blow and go on to the eventual attainment of its objectives.
Civilian defense programs are designed to serve to minimize casual-
ties in the event of 'attack, to provide emergency relief immediately
after attack, and to help preserve the productive core of the nation.
Civil defense programs are tailored to domestic military defense pro-
grams and require close and continuing coordination with them. In
this regard civil defense programs are currently being reviewed with
the objective of revising them, as to timing and magnitude, in accord-
ance with the more urgent and increased military program now being
developed.
                     THME STOCKPILING PROGRAM
  13. The stockpiling program is designed to afford the United States
those strategic and critical materials, essential for the prosecution of
a five-year war, which would not be forthcoming from United States
wartime production and imports from accessible sources.
  14. Plans developed up to the end of November, 1950, had been
designed to have these stockpiles complete and physically on hand in
the United States by 1954.
   15. The stockpile program is currently being reviewed with the
objective to revising in accordance with and subject to the increased
military requirements now being developed. In addition, stockpile


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