Mutual Security Act (1951).Successor to the Mutual Defense Assistance Act and the Economic Cooperation Act, the Mutual Security Act became law on 10 October 1951. It created a new, independent agency, the Mutual Security Administration, to supervise all foreign aid programs including military assistance and economic programs that bolstered the defense capability of U.S. allies.

Submitted on 24 May 1951, President Harry S. Truman's omnibus foreign aid bill got a hostile reception on Capitol Hill. Rapid expansion of national security expenditures during the Korean War had produced alarm over high taxes, large deficits, government controls, and a possible “garrison state” among such prominent conservatives as Senator Robert Taft (R‐Ohio). Truman's decision to send U.S. troops to Europe as part of a standing NATO force further antagonized congressional conservatives and exacerbated their fears that European nations were not doing enough for their own defense. Congress thus reduced the administration's request for Mutual Security funds by 15 percent and authorized $5.998 billion and $1.486 billion, respectively, for military and economic assistance. The deepest cuts were in economic aid, thus ensuring its subordination to military assistance as “defense support.” Renewed each year until 1961 (on the reorganization of the program under new legislation), the Mutual Security Act produced annual struggles over the size of the foreign aid budget and the balance between military and economic aid.
[See also Isolationism; Marshall Plan.]

Bibliography

Michael J. Hogan , The Marshall Plan: America, Britain, and the Reconstruction of Western Europe, 1947–1952, 1987.
Alfred Goldberg, ed., History of the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Vol. 2: Doris M. Condit , The Test of War, 1950–1953, 1988.

Chester J. Pach, Jr.