David Thomas: “I rise this morning as a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to discuss the content of a recent interoffice…”

“I rise this morning as a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to discuss the content of a recent interoffice electronic memo from Sally Shelton, the Assistant Administrator for the Bureau of Global Programs, Bill Support and Research at the Agency for International Development [AID] regarding congressional plans to merge AID into the State Department and to cut the somewhat bloated foreign assistance budget. For the benefit of my colleagues who may not have seen the memo, dated May 3, let me quote it here: The Administrator spoke to InterAction yesterday * * *. The Administrator would prefer that InterAction stay out of the merger issue and there is indeed no consensus on their Board as to what position to take. But some want to be involved-- the Administrator reminded us of Dean Acheson's comment ``Don't just do something, sit there!'' Tony Lake is addressing InterAction tomorrow--he is pushing the phrase ``backdoor isolationist'' to tar the anti-150 account Congressmen with * * *. Shalikashvili and Wm. Perry had a good mtg with the Speaker on the 150 account * * * though the news from the Senate is not so good * * * Sen. Domenici is pushing for bigger cuts than had been anticipated earlier. Jill Buckly reports that the Senate For. Rels. Comm. staff was relatively uncooperative in discussions yesterday and somewhat surprisingly the HIRC [House International Relations Committee] staff was cooperative.…”