Foreign Assistance Act of 1974

Foreign Assistance Act of 1974
Other short titles	Foreign Assistance Act Amendments of 1974
Long title	An Act to amend the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, and for other purposes.
Enacted by	the 93rd United States Congress
Effective	December 30, 1974
Citations
Public law	93-559
Statutes at Large	88 Stat. 1795
Codification
Acts amended	Foreign Assistance Act of 1961
Titles amended	22 U.S.C.: Foreign Relations and Intercourse
U.S.C. sections amended	22 U.S.C. ch. 32 § 2151
Legislative history
	Introduced in the Senate as S. 3394 by John Sparkman (D–AL) on April 29, 1974; Committee consideration by Senate Foreign Relations; Passed the Senate on December 4, 1974 (46–45); Passed the House on December 11, 1974 (201–189, in lieu of H.R. 17234); Reported by the joint conference committee on December 17, 1974; agreed to by the Senate on December 17, 1974 (49–43) and by the House on December 18, 1974 (209–189); Signed into law by President Gerald R. Ford on December 30, 1974;

The Foreign Assistance Act of 1974 (Pub. L. 93–559) was a United States federal law that amended the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 and authorized U.S. foreign assistance programs for fiscal year 1975. Enacted on December 30, 1974, the Act increased and reallocated authorizations for development assistance, security assistance, and postwar relief, and added new program authorities and reporting requirements.

The 1974 amendments are particularly noted for (1) introducing an explicit human rights standard for U.S. security assistance through a new section 502B of the 1961 Act, (2) placing detailed ceilings and conditions on assistance for South Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, (3) authorizing large economic and military aid packages to Israel, Egypt and Jordan in the context of post–Yom Kippur War diplomacy, and (4) suspending most military assistance and arms transfers to Turkey following the Turkish invasion of Cyprus.

The Act also contained the Hughes–Ryan Amendment, which for the first time required the president to make a formal finding that each covert action undertaken by the CIA was important to U.S. national security and to report those operations in a timely manner to designated committees of Congress, thereby providing a statutory basis for regular congressional oversight of covert action.