215. Memorandum From the Chairman of the Council on Foreign Economic Policy (Randall) to the Director of the Office of International Trade and Resources (Thibodeaux)1
I have just spent a tense hour with Van den Berg, who, with his associate from the Coal and Steel Community, called on me on the scrap matter, just after they had talked with McCoy2 at Commerce.
I had met Van den Berg when I visited the Dutch steel plants, and I happen to know most of the persons whom he represents in the various European steel plants.
I gave them a very rough ride, thinking it would perhaps be more helpful if I did this than if either of you had to.
I told them that they must stop saying that there was an understanding that they would receive 200,000 tons a month this year, and then made the same three points I have been making to others, as follows.
- 1.
- That unless they voluntarily stay within the tonnage they took last year, they run great risk of the imposition of quotas either by the Congress or by the Administration.
- 2.
- That they should take more in bundles and less in heavy melting.
- 3.
- That they should prove to our government that they have a permanent solution for their metallics problem.
As to the building of blast furnances, I gather that at long last they may have a suitable program under way. They think that by the end of 1958 they will be self-sufficient in metal. I suggest that Ben Thibodeaux ask our observer at OEEC to report on the status of the blast furnance program in Europe.
They made a strong plea that if they did not receive 600,000 tons more than last year, it would curtail production in Europe. To this I replied: “So what?” I said that their present predicament was the result of faulty planning and lack of foresight, and that there was a basic unfairness in asking the United States to make up for their own neglect.
They then said that they were surprised at how we had permitted the Japanese to increase. I replied that this was very understandable in view of the importance of Japan to the military and economic picture of the United States in the Pacific, and that a strong argument could be made that scrap should be taken away from the Community [Page 512] and given to Japan. I said that the nations of the Community were not helping us carry any part of the load of the free nations of the Pacific, and that, maybe after we gave scrap to Japan, they would.
I am afraid I have forever made myself unpopular with the steel industry in Europe, but I thought perhaps these plain truths could be said by me more effectively than by anyone else because of my background both in the American and European industries.
Clarence B. Randall