Abstract

New Twist to the Mystery

On March 30, 1965, as the journal "The Nation," was about to go to press with its April 12 issue on "The Billion-Dollar Mystery," involving the alleged misuse of American foreign aid funds in Iran, Senator John L. McClellan hurriedly called his Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Committee on Government Operations into secret session to put into the record evidence indicating that charges to which he had listened for nearly two years were fraudulent. The action and its results have compounded the original mystery, for now thrown into the discard, ignored as if it had never existed, was the vital and overriding issue: what has happened to the literally billions of dollars of American aid ladled out to Iran? Examination of the hearing record shows that, after appearing to accept for nearly two years the theory that there had been gross corruption in American aid to Iran, the entire energies of the McClellan committee were devoted to a single demonstration.