Lot 54 D 361 E Box 328
Extract From “Current Economic Developments”, October 27, 19471
. . . . . . .
Broad Outlines of Paris Report Acceptable but Most Technical Aspects Need Refining
For the past several weeks technical experts of the Committee on European Economic Cooperation have been in Washington reviewing the Paris report with officials of US Government agencies, members of the Harriman Committee, and special Congressional liaison personnel. [Page 451] The meetings have been extremely useful in supplying us with background information and providing a general clarification of the concepts underlying the CEEC report.
While in all public statements we have expressed our gratification with the targets and principles of the report, a great number of omissions and discrepancies from the technical point-of-view have been revealed through close examination of the specific commodity chapters. Certain limitations in the report are recognized as unavoidable. Probably the chief limitation is the fact that statistics are based on conditions as of a certain date in the face of rapidly changing situations. Another major handicap in drafting the report was the fact that the amount of government planning varies greatly among the participating states, with some economies having substantial government control and others having comparatively little. The fact that none of the participants have a completely controlled economy, nor desire to have, makes programming more difficult.
We have no argument with the broad outlines of the report, and we recognize that detailed planning for the future is practically impossible. Any program for the recovery of Europe must be flexible enough to meet inevitable changes in conditions and must be regarded more as a blue print than a program.
Even though a great deal of work remains to be done before recommendations to Congress can be finalized, it is deemed inadvisable to reconvene the CEEC in Paris since it is believed that such a conference could not do much to rectify the technical aspects of the report. It is believed it will be more effective for CEEC technicians to continue working with US officials, while additional information is supplied continually by the participating countries. There has been some indication, from reports received from our missions, that a number of the participating countries have been refining the figures which they submitted at Paris. The time schedule also makes a second Paris conference questionable since a report must be ready by November 10 to submit to the joint meeting of the Senate and House Foreign Relations Committees.
One general criticism is that little effort appears to have been made in appraising the submitted national requirements for imported goods and services against their contribution to European recovery as a whole. The work in Washington is aimed at reconciling the requirements with availabilities and world requirements. A Steering Committee2 has been established to coordinate reports of the working parties, which are divided as follows: agricultural machinery; food, fertilizer; maritime transportation; inland transport; timber; iron [Page 452] and steel; coal; electric power; petroleum; mining machinery; electricity; and balance of payments. Germany’s participation in a recovery program is being fully represented by OMGUS and Departmental officials. In many instances our German program is the focal point of whether or not certain commodities can be made available in the required amounts.
[Here follows a more detailed analysis of the operations and conclusions of individual U.S. working groups reviewing the CEEC technical reports.]