The Week

Astronaut Shepard studied the odds, did his homework, placed his bet, and won. He got a fifteen-minute ride on a German rocket developed by German scientists in Alabama after fifteen years and several hundred million dollars had been spent. On this subject the French press is—well—French. The German press takes note of the inexplicable delays in the American program, chides us for our jubilation, and tells us it’s time to work harder and with more consciousness of our goal. Missiles & Rockets excoriates the whole publicity scheme surrounding the space ride. And national review, alas, points out what a miserable failure the U.S. shot was in comparison with the Ride of the Wild Duck. Where’s the full-length biography of Shepard? Where’s the commemorative stamp issued on the very day of victory? Where’s the heroic statuary unveiled the next day? A botch to the last.

Nothing stops the foreign aid folly. The program becomes daily more irresponsible and senseless. Treating our own serious balance-of-payments problem as if it did not exist, the Administration is planning to lend India $1 billion in the next two years and helping to put together a $2 billion aid “package” for Brazil to rescue these two countries from their balance-of-payments problems—brought about, like ours, by their own inflationist and welfare-state programs. And now Congress has appropriated $600 million to start a long-range economic aid program for Latin America to run presumably for ten years and to cost us at least $2.5 billion before we are through. Moreover, the sponsors of this legislation have made it clear that the money is only going to the Latin American countries if they promise to redouble the inflationist and socialist policies that caused their difficulties in the first place.

Featured Tags

Astronaut Shepard studied the odds, did his homework, placed his bet, and won. He got a fifteen-minute ride on a German rocket developed by German scientists in Alabama after fifteen years and several hundred million dollars had been spent. On this subject the French press is—well—French. The German press takes note of the inexplicable delays in the American program, chides us for our jubilation, and tells us it’s time to work harder and with more consciousness of our goal. Missiles & Rockets excoriates the whole publicity scheme surrounding the space ride. And national review, alas, points out what a miserable failure the U.S. shot was in comparison with the Ride of the Wild Duck. Where’s the full-length biography of Shepard? Where’s the commemorative stamp issued on the very day of victory? Where’s the heroic statuary unveiled the next day? A botch to the last.

Nothing stops the foreign aid folly. The program becomes daily more irresponsible and senseless. Treating our own serious balance-of-payments problem as if it did not exist, the Administration is planning to lend India $1 billion in the next two years and helping to put together a $2 billion aid “package” for Brazil to rescue these two countries from their balance-of-payments problems—brought about, like ours, by their own inflationist and welfare-state programs. And now Congress has appropriated $600 million to start a long-range economic aid program for Latin America to run presumably for ten years and to cost us at least $2.5 billion before we are through. Moreover, the sponsors of this legislation have made it clear that the money is only going to the Latin American countries if they promise to redouble the inflationist and socialist policies that caused their difficulties in the first place.