The Securities and Exchange Commission announced that Dillon, Reed & Co., Secretary of Treasury Douglas Dillon's banking firm will underwrite a $200 million bond issue [equal to $1,461,000,000 in 2012] for Dictator Salazaar's "Republic of Portugal." The Dillon firm specializes in financing the borrowings of foreign governments of the Portugal type. The Secretary of Treasury's bank is U.S. financial agent for the "Republic" of South Africa, which may account in part for U.S. reluctance to give any support to African demands for an economic boycott of South Africa. On January 19 Roman Catholic Archbishop Hurley of Durban, South Africa, said that country is "beyond human control beyond hope." He speaks, of course, as a Moral leader, not a banking leader, or a member of the U.S. Cabinet.
[In 1965, Portugal was still one of the most ruthless colonial exploiters in Africa. With U.S. aid, it was fighting vicious wars to supress national liberation movements in its colonies of Mozambique, Guinea Bissau, and Angola.]
* * *
On January 17 Lyndon announced that $101 million of war-on-poverty money has been allocated. A total of $22,670, .02% of the allocations, actually went to poor people in the form of small business and farm loans. The balance, 99.98%, went to the poverty warriors themselves. A typical grant (no loans to the warriors — only the poor must repay) was the one to the Systems Development Corporation of Santa Monica, California. This corporate poverty warrior got $85,000 [equal to $621,000 in 2012] to "operate a computer based information program and retrieval system."
* * *
In his State of the Union message on January 4, Lyndon declared that the fate of the nation depends upon the availability of adequate medical treatment for all Americans. In his Inaugural address on January 20th Lyndon said, "In a land of healing miracles, neighbors must not suffer and die untended ... every sick body made whole — like a candle added to an altar — brightens the hope of all the faithful." Meanvlhile, Lyndon had lighted his own little candle. He brightened the hope of the faithful by closing 14 U.S. Government hospitals in order to cut $25 million from his budget.
* * *
While Lyndon's head poverty-warrior, Sargent Shriver (he should know a lot about poverty — he was born to wealth and married even more) could find only $22,670 to put into the hands of poor people, Lyndon's foreign aid warrior David E. Bell (head of Agency for International Development — rumored to be the CIA in disguise) was giving Neil H. Jacoby, Dean of the Graduate School of Business Administration at UCLA, $25,000 to "tell the story of the Republic of China's progression from an agricultural backwater to a booming modern economy with $1.4 billion in U.S. aid."
* * *
"In a land of wealth, families must not live in hopeless poverty," said Lyndon in his Unaugural Address.In Kansas City on January 19, a 7 1/2-week- old baby died of starvation. Two years ago another child of the same family, this one five months old, died of starvation. The father of the children works as a street cleaner for the city. He informed police who came to arrest him on charges of manslaughter, that he did not always have enough money to buy food for his children. "In a land rich in harvest, children must not go hungry," murmured Lyndon as he sipped his champagne at the Inaugural Ball.
* * *
On January 17th, Lyndon let it be known that he's trying to decide how much more money he ought to give Tshombe to finance their war against the people of the Congo. It seems Tshombe is having trouble meeting the payroll for his South African white mercenaries. They get $364 per month plus $17 per day "dangerous duty" pay. There is continuing trouble between the Belgian white mercenaries and the South African white mercenaries, because each wants to take, and loot, the choice Congo towns. Thus does Lyndon "seek greatness with the sweat of our hands and the strength of our spirit." As he said in the Inaugural, "In each generation — with toil and tears — we have had to earn our heritage again."
* * *
On January 8th the Federal Trade Commission announced the filing of a complaint against Merck & Co. The charge is that Merck has lied to the public about the healing qualities of its "Sucretes" cough drops. On January 15 the Senate confirmed Lyndon's appointment of Merck president John T. Connor as Secretary of Commerce. Connor, having been policy-maker for Merck when it lied about its cough drops, will now be policy-maker for the business department of the U.S. Government. They are all honorable men.
* * *
On the night of January 19, 67 Negroes were in detention camps in Selma, Alabama because they wanted thc right to vote.
[See Selma Voting Rights Campaign for background information.]
That same evening Hubert Humphrey, whom Lyndon has designated to implement the [1964] Civil Rights Act was drinking champagne in the l5-room Washington penthouse of Oklahoma oil-heiress Perle Mesta. There is no record that the thougbt of the Negroes, imprisoned because they sought the right to vote, soured the taste of Hubert's champagne. Another guest at the party, a ballet dancer we are told, was asked what he thought of Lyndon's Great Society. "I don't know, " he replied, "I haven't seen it yet." Neither have we.
Copyright © Jack Minnis, 1965
© Copyright
Webspinner:
webmaster@crmvet.org
(Labor donated)