International Trade Files: Lot 57D284, Box 106
The Acting Deputy Director of the Office of International Trade Policy (Brown) to William L. Clayton
Dear Mr. Clayton: Supplementing my letter of yesterday,1 the main issue which Clair [Wilcox] poses is which of three possible alternatives we should follow in connection with the conference. He thinks it unlikely that we will be able to get wide agreement on a Charter which is close enough to the Geneva draft to satisfy us. He outlines three alternatives: (1) to try to get 25 or 30 countries to agree to a strong and satisfactory Charter; (2) to get general agreement on some of the chapters and sections, and adjourn consideration of the balance to a definite later date; (3) to accept a “skeleton” Charter without substantive provisions which merely sets up a consultative body.
Clair feels that if the first course is followed, we should be in a position to get Congressional action at the 1948 session, and have at least a fifty-fifty chance that such action would be favorable. He suggests consultation with Senator Vandenberg on this point. He points out that to secure such action would require the maximum push from the Department at the very top, and hopes you will be able to talk to the Secretary and Under Secretary about it.
Clair thinks that if the second course were followed, we would not be too badly off, as we could hold the GATT countries (except possibly for 3 or 4 countries). Adjournment would mean, of course, that the Charter would not come to Congress until 1949. In this event, he feels it most important that we seek renewal of the Trade Agreements Act at the 1948 session.
My own conviction, of course, is that we ought to seek that renewal in any event, probably on a single-year basis, because if we do not, we will appear to other countries to have abandoned our policy of economic cooperation in the trade field and to have returned to the pre-Hull tariff policy, and will let down all our supporters in the United States. Public support is now stronger than it ever has been before, and I am sure that all we need to make that support effective is to give it leadership. If we do not, it will be dissipated.
I have cabled for more definite information as to what the “skeleton” ITO might look like, and we will have complete up-to-date information for you when you arrive on Friday. I am sending you this sketchy outline so that you can be thinking over the possibilities in the meanwhile.
Sincerely yours,
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