To the Congress of the United States:
     Last year this nation dedicated itself to a "Decade of Development," designed to help the new and developing states of the world grow in political independence, economic welfare and social justice.
     Last September, in support of this effort, the Congress enacted fundamental changes in our program of foreign assistance.
     Last November the Executive Branch drastically reorganized and restaffed this program in accordance with the Congressional mandate.
     Today the "decade" is only four months old. It would surely be premature to make any claims of dramatic results. Our new aid program, addressed to the specific needs of individual countries for long-term development, presupposes basic changes, careful planning and gradual achievement. Yet these few months have shown significant movement in new directions. The "turnaround" has begun.
     Our new aid policy aims at strengthening the political and economic independence of developing countries - which means strengthening their capacity both to master the inherent stress of rapid change and to repel Communist efforts to exploit such stress from within or without. In the framework of this broad policy, economic, social and military development take their proper place. In Washington our aid operations have been largely unified under the direction of the Administrator of the Agency for International Development. Recipient countries are improving their planning mechanisms, devising country development plans, and beginning extensive programs of self-help and self-reform. In addition to long range programs developed with India, Nigeria and others we have, under the new authority granted by the Congress, entered into a new type of long-term commitment with two nations - Pakistan and Tanganyika - after the most painstaking review of their proposed development plans, and others will follow. In addition to placing emphasis on the improvement of internal security forces, we are giving increased attention to the contribution which local military forces can make through civic action programs to economic and social development.
     In financing these programs, we are relying more heavily than before on loans repayable in dollars. Other institutions are joining with us in this effort - not only private institutions but also the United Nations, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the Organization of American States and the InterAmerican Development Bank. We have urged other industrialized countries to devote a larger share of their resources to the provision of capital to the less developed nations. Some have done so - and we are hopeful that the rest will also recognize their stake in the success and stability of the emerging economies. We are continuing, in view of our balance of payments situation, to emphasize procurement within the United States for most goods required by the program. And we are working toward strengthening the foreign exchange position of the emerging countries by encouraging the development of new trade patterns. The proposed new Trade Expansion Act is a most important tool in facilitating this trend.
     Much more, of course, could be said. But having set forth last year in a series of messages and addresses on foreign aid the goals we seek and the tools we need, it is not necessary to repeat to the Congress this year our nation's basic interest in the development and freedom of other nations - or to review all of the initiatives launched under last year's programs. The Congress is familiar with these arguments and programs, as well as its own role and contribution in enacting long-term financing authority. Thus the foreign aid legislation submitted this year does not require reconsideration of these questions. It is instead limited primarily to the new authorizations required annually under the terms of last year's law. The only major change proposed is the establishment of a separate long-term Alliance for Progress fund. The total amounts requested were included in the Federal Budget previously submitted for fiscal 1963 and the authorizing legislation enacted last year, and have in fact been reduced in some instances. They cannot, I believe, be further reduced if the partnership on which we are now embarked - a joint endeavor with each developing nation and with each aid-giving nation - is to demonstrate the advances in human well-being which flow from economic development joined with political liberty. For we should know by now that where weakness and dependence are not transformed into strength and self-reliance, we can expect only chaos, and then tyranny, to follow.

     Because Development Lending and Military Assistance appropriations for Fiscal Year 1963 were authorized in the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, no new authorizations for these two programs are needed. I am proposing new authorization and appropriation of $335 million for Development Grants; $481.5 million for Supporting Assistance; $148.9 million for contributions to International Organizations; $100 million for Investment Guarantees; $400 million for the Contingency Fund; and $60 million for administrative costs and other programs. I am also proposing appropriations for 1963 of $2,753 million, including the $1,250 million already authorized for development lending, and $1,500 million ($200 million below that authorized) for military assistance.. The total appropriation request for the foreign economic and military assistance program for fiscal year 1963 is $4,878 million.
     These recommendations are based upon a careful examination of the most urgent needs of each country and area. Each of these forms of assistance, in these amounts, is essential to the achievement of our overall foreign assistance objectives. The total is less than the estimates in the Budget because of a reduction in my request for Supporting Assistance.
     One item in particular deserves attention. The past year has amply demonstrated that rapid and unpredictable changes in the world situation of direct interest to our security cannot be foreseen or predicted accurately at the time Congress acts upon the appropriations. I therefore urge the Congress to recognize this need for flexibility to meet contingencies and emergencies and to approve the full authorization and appropriation requested of $400 million.

     The Charter of Punta del Este which last August established the Alliance for Progress is the framework of goals and conditions for what has been called "a peaceful revolution on a Hemispheric scale."
     That revolution had begun before the Charter was drawn. It will continue after its goals are reached. If its goals are not achieved, the revolution will continue but its methods and results will be tragically different. History has removed for governments the margin of safety between the peaceful revolution and the violent revolution. The luxury of a leisurely interval is no longer available.
     These were the facts recognized at Punta del Este. These were the facts that dictated the terms of the Charter. And these are the facts which require our participation in this massive cooperative effort.
     To give this program the special recognition and additional resources which it requires, I therefore propose an authorization of $3 billion for the Alliance for Progress for the next four years. Of the $3 billion, an authorization and appropriation of $600 million is being requested for 1963, with up to $100 million to be used for grants and the balance of $500 million or more for development loans. This authorization will be separate from and supplementary to the $6 billion already authorized for loans for development for 1963 through 1966, which will remain available for use throughout the world.
     During the year beginning last March over $1.0 billion has been committed in Latin America by the United States in support of the Alliance, fulfilling the pledge we made at the first Punta del Este meeting, and launching in a very real way for this Hemisphere a dramatic Decade of Development. But even with this impressive support, the destiny of the Alliance lies largely in the hands of the countries themselves. For even large amounts of external aid can do no more than provide the margin which enables each country through its own determination and action to achieve lasting success.
     The United States recognizes that it takes time - to develop careful programs for national development and the administrative capacity necessary to carry out such a program - to go beyond the enactment of land reform measures and actually transfer the land and make the most productive use of it - to pass new tax laws and then achieve their acceptance and enforcement. It is heartening, therefore, that the changes called for by the Alliance for Progress have been the central issue in several Latin American elections - demonstrating that its effects will be deep and real. Under the Organization of American States, nine outstanding economists and development advisors have begun to assist countries in critically reviewing their plans. Three Latin American countries have already completed and submitted for review their plans for the more effective mobilization of their resources toward national development. The others are creating and strengthening their mechanisms for development planning. A number of Latin American countries have already taken significant steps toward land or tax reform; and throughout the region there is a new ferment of activity, centered on improvements in education, in rural development, in public administration, and on other essential institutional measures required to give a sound basis for economic growth.
     But more important still is the changed attitudes of peoples and governments already noticeable in Latin America. The Alliance has fired the imagination and kindled the hopes of millions of our good neighbors. Their drive toward modernization is gaining momentum as it unleashes the energies of these millions; and the United States is becoming increasingly identified in the minds of the people with the goal they move toward: a better life with freedom. Our hand - extended in help - is being accepted without loss of dignity.
     But the Alliance is barely under way. It is a task for a decade, not for a year. It requires further changes in outlook and policy by all American States. New institutions will need to be formed. New plans - if they are to be serious - will have to assume a life other than on paper.
     One of the brightest pages of the world's history has been the series of programs this Nation has devised, established and implemented following the Second World War to help free peoples achieve economic development and the control of their own destinies. These programs, which have been solidly based on bipartisan support, are the proud manifestations of our deep-seated love and pursuit of freedom for individuals and for nations.
     I realize that there are among us those who are weary of sustaining this continual effort to help other nations. But I would ask them to look at a map and recognize that many of those whom we help live on the "front-lines" of the long twilight struggle for freedom - that others are new nations posed between order and chaos - and the rest are older nations now undergoing a turbulent transition of new expectations. Our efforts to help them help themselves, to demonstrate and to strengthen the vitality of free institutions, are small in cost compared to our military outlays for the defense of freedom. Yet all of our armies and atoms combined will be of little avail if these nations fall, unable to meet the needs of their own people, and unable to stave off within their borders the rise of forces that threaten our security. This program - and the passage of this bill - are vital to the interests of the United States.
     We are, I am confident, equal to our responsibilities in this area - responsibilities as compelling as any our nation has known. Today, we are still in the first months of a decade's sustained effort. But I can report that our efforts are underway; they are moving in the right direction; they are gaining momentum daily; and they have already begun to realize a small part of their great potential. The turn-around has indeed begun.