Bourke B. Hickenlooper - Hickenlooper Amendment

Hickenlooper Amendment

The proposed Hickenlooper Amendment, a rider to the 1962 United States foreign aid bill, would have halted aid to any country expropriating U.S. property. The amendment was specifically aimed at Cuba – led by Fidel Castro – which had expropriated U.S.-owned and U.S.-controlled sugar plantations and refineries.

The amendment followed the seizure of three U.S. oil companies in Cuba and Argentina. It was also in response to a ruling of the United States Supreme Court that in effect denied the right of an American sugar company to contest the seizure of its holdings by the Castro government.

Hickenlooper viewed his amendment as guaranteeing a U.S. businessman his day in court whenever property is seized by a foreign government. The Supreme Court's ruling, wrote Hickenlooper in 1964, "presumes that any inquiry . . . into the acts of a foreign state will be a matter of embarrassment to the conduct of foreign policy."

The amendment was strongly opposed by the administration of U.S. President John F. Kennedy, which argued that its passage would threaten all U.S. diplomacy, particularly in Latin America. It was defeated on the Senate floor, 45 to 35.

Wiley Mayne, a U.S. representative from Iowa from 1967 to 1975, said that the Senate erred in rejecting the Hickenlooper Amendment. "Had the amendment been enforced throughout the years, it would appear that we would have been in a far better position in our relations with the less developed nations and certainly . . . in regard to our balance of payments. . . . "