493.119/11–2950
Memorandum of Telephone Conversation, by Miss Barbara Evans, Secretary to the Secretary of State
Secretary Sawyer telephoned Secretary Acheson and said he was giving serious thought to putting an embargo, or at least controls on everything going to China. He said that State Department people had been consulted by Mr. Blaisdell, but they had not given the Department’s opinion to Commerce.
Secretary Sawyer recalled that when the Korean war had started all shipments to North Korea had been shut off, and he thought that now that the Chinese were in, it seemed to him wise to apply the same principle. He somewhat qualified this by saying that they would not necessarily cut off all shipments, but would put everything on the [Page 667] positive list, which would, as a matter of fact, probably result in very little going through.
Mr. Acheson said that his first, off-hand impression was that it would be a good idea.
Secretary Sawyer said that actually very little of importance had been going to China, while we had been getting important amounts of tungsten from them, and were getting some wool and tin. 85% of our shipments to China in the last six months had been cotton; nothing of any military importance had been shipped.
Mr. Acheson suggested that the matter should be talked over with Mr. Symington,1 since tungsten was involved. Secretary Sawyer did not seem to think that this was necessary, and he said that he thought that the Chinese would continue to ship tungsten, since they have been shipping it to us, even after we had drastically cut down on shipments to China.
Mr. Acheson said he would look into the matter and call Secretary Sawyer back.
- W. Stuart Symington, Chairman of the National Security Resources Board, was a member of the National Security Council.↩