460.509/5–2154
The Secretary of Commerce (Weeks) to the Secretary of State
Dear Foster: The present negotiations in COCOM, which will inevitably lead to an increased trade with Soviet Russia and her satellites [Page 1171] on the part of our partners in Europe and presumably on our part as well, seem to me to have been given insufficient attention from the standpoint of their value as a factor for over-all negotiations with the Russians. I understand some brief mention was made during the course of the Berlin Conference of Russia’s desire to increase her imports from the United Kingdom, but as far as I know no use was made of their desire at that Conference. We well understand the motives behind the British pressure to dismantle a portion of the controls as they see dangling before them some profitable orders for machinery and equipment. It seems to me obvious that the Russians are very anxious to make these purchases because they are short of the equipment and materials they seek to buy, and we ought to take full advantage of any multilateral willingness on the part of the West to accede to these desires and to use that willingness as a means of getting some other advantage at the Geneva Conference or in some other way.
It may be that I am not in possession of all the facts, but I have been rather puzzled by the absence during the course of our discussions in the NSC and elsewhere of any interest in this notion of using our forthcoming decisions in this way, even though this is implied in NSC 152/3.1
It seems now that the idea of the so-called “peel-off” method of decontrol is on the shelf and that the COCOM discussions and the ultimate CG discussions may be expected to result in some measure of agreement in COCOM about the first of July with, perhaps, still a substantial area of disagreement as well. Would it not be worth giving serious consideration to approaching the British and the French at this point in an effort to get them to agree that whereas we would finish this exercise as we had planned to do in the next six weeks we would not, as we are now contemplating, cross at present the bridge of Western action early in July, but re-examine the situation at that time to determine whether willingness on our part to take such action should not be used as a trading point. We might also at this time indicate to our partners in COCOM that one element which might influence our final position with respect to the composition of the shorter list for embargo or for quantitative control could be the reaching of an agreement with them to use the shorter list as a trading point to extract a quid pro quo from the Russians and Chinese either at Geneva or elsewhere. It seems to me that if the West could unanimously present what I think the Russians would regard as an attractive trade package, it could possibly strengthen the impression of unity before the Russians as well as draw concessions from them.
[Page 1172]I have no way of knowing whether anything substantially worthwhile could be extracted from the Russians by a holding back on the part of the West from taking this action, but judging by the avidity of the Russians’ appetite, as evidenced by their recent negotiations with British businessmen and the increasing tempo of their trade interest all over the world including the United States, it might be worth considering. It is even thinkable that the very composition of the list itself might be used in trading with the Russians, although this is pretty difficult to visualize ahead of time in its entirety.
I am writing to you in the hope that this may prove to be a useful line of thinking. If you believe it desirable, we might ask General Cutler to consider a Planning Board discussion of it with Council consideration at an early date.
Sincerely yours,