No. 900
Editorial Note
On August 7, President Eisenhower signed the Mutual Security Appropriations Act of 1954, Public Law 83–218 (67 Stat. 478). Under its provisions, the $75 million previously allocated to Spain for economic assistance was specifically reappropriated, and the $50 million allocated for military assistance was included in the total sum of unobligated funds which was carried over to 1954. Of the $2,857 billion requested for all new military, technical, and economic aid programs under Title I (which included Spain) of the Mutual Security Act of 1951, as amended (65 Stat. 373, 66 Stat. 141, and 67 Stat. 152), however, only $2.08 billion was approved. But because the Executive Branch, rather than the Congress, as in previous years, had initiated a Spanish aid program for fiscal year 1954, and had therefore incorporated the request for Spain into the total amount sought from Congress, it was still possible to reprogram the amounts destined for individual countries in order to assign to Spain the $100 million of new aid in addition to the $125 million carried over from 1952 and 1953, for a total of $225 million, as provided by the National Security Council on May 13, (see Document 896). The way was thus cleared for offering to the Spanish the long-term military and economic aid commitment which they had been seeking since early in the base negotiations.