840.002/12–2250
The British Prime Minister (Attlee) to President Truman l
I was about to reply to your message of 18th December about the new Raw Materials Group2 when I heard that this question was raised by Dr. Stikker at the Atlantic Council meeting at Brussels. You will of course have had an account of what took place there. There is clearly much misunderstanding about the nature of our proposals and we must clear this up as quickly as possible.
Dr. Stikker and others seem to have got the impression that the proposed Central Group is to have executive powers and a large organisation and they may even believe that it would itself make allocations. This of course is completely wrong. During our meetings in Washington and in subsequent discussions with the French, our representatives agreed that the Central Group would serve only as a sponsoring, co-ordinating and servicing mechanism, that it would not itself make decisions with respect to specific measures affecting production or trade in particular commodities, and that such decisions must rest with Governments represented on the standing Commodity Groups. This means that all executive power will rest with the Commodity Groups on which all the principal producers and consumers are represented. I believe that when our intentions are fully understood there will be much less objection to the plan.
[Page 608]The only point which divides us at the moment is the size of the Central Group, and the misunderstanding at Brussels makes me even more convinced that the idea which we worked out in Washington was right and that we must confine this to the United States, France and the United Kingdom. This small group would do no more than initiate action—action would be taken, or recommendations made, only as a result of the voluntary cooperation in the Commodity Groups of all the main producers and consumers. If the Central Group is enlarged to only seven or eight (and personally I do not believe it would stop there) it must inevitably become yet another international organisation and we have to face such problems as how to select the members, what its relations should be with O.E.E.C. and N.A.T.O., and what powers it should have. In short, the choice as I see it is between a new international organisation with executive powers of some kind, or an initiating body of three without either powers or sanctions. The discussion at Brussels, which was based on the former conception, shows what confusion will result if once we go beyond the three.
The Group of Three should of course have its own Secretariat and the draft terms of reference already provide for secretarial and statistical assistance to be given to the Commodity Groups upon request. It might also be useful if qualified nationals of interested countries in Europe, Latin America and the Commonwealth could be appointed to positions in the Central Secretariat.
I have noted what you say in the last paragraph of your message and I fully agree that the solution of the difficult problems which lie ahead of us depends entirely on the capacity of our two Governments to concert policy and work together in this field. For the reasons I have outlined, I urge you to go forward initially at any rate, on the original basis of a Central Group of Three. Once this is settled, our officials can work out the exact terms of the announcements, and what the relations should be with O.E.E.C. and N.A.T.O. At that stage too I think we should explain in detail to Dr. Stikker exactly what it is that we propose.
- Note presented to Acheson on December 26 by Ambassador Franks at his meeting with the Secretary, Perkins, and Thorp. A memorandum of the conversation prepared by Thorp on the same day is in Department of State file 840.002/12–2250.↩
- Not printed. For information on the establishment of this Group, see the statement of December 7 by representatives of the U.S. and the U.K., printed p. 1773. For discussion in December of whether NATO or the OEEC should be responsible for the supply and distribution of raw materials, see pp. 682–691.↩