GOP Seeks to Distill Foreign Policy System : Legislation: Move to privatize functions and merge agencies meets opposition from White House. But Helms’ plan finds favor in Congress.

WASHINGTON — Firing the opening salvo in what is certain to be an escalating confrontation with the Clinton Administration over foreign policy, House and Senate Republicans unveiled legislation Wednesday that would route much of the nation’s foreign aid through private hands and merge several independent agencies into a single “super” Department of State.

Although the outlines of the proposal crafted by Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) have been known for some time, the broad endorsement they received from House and Senate leaders threw the White House on the defensive in what has become a perennial struggle between Congress and the executive branch over foreign aid.

Until now, that battle had been waged primarily over the size of the foreign aid budget and how it has been divvied up. But while that fight will intensify as GOP leaders plan deep cuts in developmental assistance, it now will be waged within the context of a broader war over the size and shape of the institutions that conduct foreign policy and administer a shrinking foreign aid program.

“Let’s not mince words: Our foreign policy institutions are a complete mess,” Helms told a news conference, noting that his reform proposals had received the endorsement of the GOP leadership in both the House and Senate. Helms’ House counterpart, International Relations Committee Chairman Benjamin A. Gilman (R-N.Y.), said that he welcomed the initiative, which is similar to reforms being advocated by Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), chairman of the Senate subcommittee that appropriates foreign aid.

“We have the votes to pass this reorganization,” said Helms, who added that, “with or without the Administration, we plan to move forward with this proposal.”

Helms’ legislation, which has not been formally introduced, would abolish the Agency for International Development, the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency and the U.S. Information Agency, and fold their functions into a reorganized State Department with central authority over the conduct of foreign policy and the distribution of foreign aid.

The foreign policy Establishment’s organizational structure is “an incoherent mishmash” of duplicative functions and “entrenched bureaucracies” that waste money and “cannot effectively serve either the President or the national interest,” Helms said, adding that his proposal would “clean up this mess” through the creation of an “integrated and revitalized” State Department.

Secretary of State Warren Christopher recently made a similar consolidation proposal, only to see it touch off intense acrimony within the Administration as the directors of the endangered agencies fought to preserve their independence. Vice President Al Gore’s “reinventing government” team finally concluded that the anticipated savings from the merger were not worth the political costs and came down on the side of a more modest restructuring aimed at eliminating the agencies’ overlapping jurisdictions and streamlining their staffs.

While Gore’s office estimated that the Administration’s plan would still save $5 billion a year, the preemptive strategy backfired when Helms immediately embraced Christopher’s proposal and used it as a launching pad for his own. Helm’s version would go much further, however.

Under the GOP plan, which was endorsed by Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) and House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), the $1.3-billion developmental assistance program now administered by AID would be funneled through a new International Development Foundation.

The new agency would distribute the money in the form of block grants to private voluntary agencies involved in development projects overseas.

Helms said that changing this aspect of foreign aid--security assistance and other forms of bilateral aid would still be directly controlled by the State Department--would save taxpayers millions of dollars a year. But his critics within the Administration charged that Helms was using the proposal to camouflage what they said was his real intent: to gut the $12.5-billion program.

An AID white paper drafted to rebut GOP criticism of the agency argued that Helms’ proposal would be unworkable because the private agencies would have neither the resources nor the authority that AID has to ensure that developmental assistance is used as “a tool of U.S. foreign policy.”