UA-R-GC-1914-01-01-1967-04-25_Page-003

I I - 3 - After the meeting with Assistant Secretary of State Battle in 1963, the next really significant step came at a meeting with Agency for Inter­national Development (AID) officials sometime over a year ago in Washington. The AID officials were discouraged at that time, feeling that unless we could obtain greater State Department political concern, we would not be able to move the pound investment fund ahead. However, the State Department subsequently agreed to express its view that the program be carried forward and consultations ensued on questions of timing, format and amount. The last obstacles were cleared up last Fall at a meeting between the AID administrator. Mr. Gaud, and Dr. Bartlett and several trustees. Mr. Gaud expressed himself strongly in favor of the proposal and that it should be pursued on the nonlegislative route. that is under the waiver provision, under the legislation which gave to the Administrator of AID certain powers as to the disposition of Public Law 480 funds, without specific need for congressional legislation. Mr. Gaud directed his staff to proceed with actual drafting on the basis of a fund of LE 25,000,000. As a result of that meeting, we had for the first time a definite order by a senior official of the U.S. Government to proceed with drafting and processing. During the next months we maintained close consultation with Mr. George Christie~ Assistant General Counsel of AID, who was given the task of preparing the draft and guiding it through the bureaucratic processes. Mr. Christie, a very competent, intelligent, nonbureaucratic operator, has consistently shown great enthusiasm for the project and has kept it moving through the various departments while keeping us informed. Within a month, the proposal, with Mr. Christie's energy behind it, had obtained the General Accounting Office and the Bureau of the Budget's acceptance. Obtaining these accep­tances had been difficult. though the precedent of the Indi.an Foundatio