800.24/8–1549
The Secretary of Commerce (Sawyer) to the Secretary of State
Dear Mr. Secretary: I am as you know much concerned over the slow progress of the Western European countries in adopting security controls over the export of strategic commodities to the Soviet orbit, parallel to the controls which this Department has been enforcing for over 17 months against U.S. exporters. Your Mr. Edwin Martin has doubtless given you the same picture of the situation I have received from Mr. McIntyre of my staff.1 Evidently the British have determined to press ahead with their “1–A” controls. Other countries are in various stages of conformity. Several of these countries were to confer July 15, and agreement on the imposition of uniform controls at the British level was a possibility. It would be helpful if the several U.S. agencies concerned with the export security problem could know the outcome of this July 15 (Quay d’Orsay) conference.
In any event, there is no mechanism in existence which will assure a control of “1–B” items by Western Europe comparable with U.S. restrictions. I understand that the British are generally opposed to a consultative group which would attempt to define a “safe quantity, appropriate for civilian needs in the Soviet Area”, so as to rationalize the aggregate quantity which the Western world is prepared to see supplied. I am aware of the arrangements made for the exchange of information between the U.K. and ourselves on past shipments of “1–B” items, but this is never likely to provide adequate warning of key commodity shipments in time for effective multilateral control. Furthermore, the prospects are not encouraging for the extension of this post-facto data exchange system to ten or more countries, each with a different export statistical classification.
The possibility has been informally discussed among representatives of our two Departments that a meeting might be called between the U.S. and representatives of the several Western European countries to explore techniques for preventing unauthorized transshipment of high [Page 137] security goods to the East, and that at such a meeting other topics of common interest in this field might be raised. I am heartily in favor of planning such a conference, and should like to designate Mr. Loring K. Macy, who has succeeded Mr. McIntyre on my staff, to represent me in making tentative plans for the Department of Commerce’s participation in such discussions.
In this connection I should like to make an observation based on my experience in watching the relationships among the U.S., U.K., and one of the smaller Western European countries (Belgium). It seems to me we are too willing to let the British handle for us important and delicate negotiations with these countries, and that the British, while they welcome this intermediary position, can scarcely be expected always to press the U.S. point of view with full vigor, I urge, therefore, that in any subsequent negotiations on parallel export controls, we ask the U.K. to join us as partners in continental negotiations, rather than requesting them (however sincerely they may agree to present the U.S. position as their own) to convene the other powers for a discussion in which the U.S. does not participate.
Needless to say, I shall be happy to meet with you at any time for further consideration of these important problems.
Sincerely yours,
- Edwin McCammon Martin, Acting Director of the Office of International Trade of the Department of State, and Francis E. McIntyre, Assistant Director of the Office of International Trade of the Department of Commerce, visited Western Europe in late June and July to discuss the progress of trade control implementation with appropriate officials.↩