Foreign Relations of the United States, 1958–1960, Foreign Economic Policy, Volume IV

285. Telegram From Secretary of State Dulles to the Department of State⁰

Seattle, November 10, 1958, 9 p.m.¹

Dulte 2. Re oil imports Following is an excerpt from memorandum of Secretary’s conversation with the President this morning: “I said I thought that it would not be possible to propose a final decision on new controls on oil imports in the next few days. The President recalled that several representatives of the oil industry had come to see him last week with Secretary Anderson to explain that since the inception of the voluntary restrictions on the imports of crude oil, imports of semi-finished products had increased sharply from about 80,000 barrels a day to 380,000. The President had thought that this problem could be taken care of by increases on the duties on semi-finished products, he also thought that this increase could be handled quite separately from the question of voluntary program on crude, which he thought could continue.

I said that as the problem had been presented to me, this differentiation had not been proposed. I said that I believed that any mandatory program which would restrict imports of oil would involve serious questions of our obligations under GATT and our trade agreements with Venezuela, Canada and possibly others. Nonetheless I thought that perhaps a separate handling of the imports of semi-finished products might be possible.

At this point the President telephoned Secretary Anderson in Washington. After his conversation he told me that Secretary Anderson had said we would probably be in trouble as regards GATT either way, but that another possibility was that importers might voluntarily limit imports of semi-finished products to 5 percent of their total imports. This would hold semi-finished imports down to about 35,000 barrels. The President left it with Secretary Anderson that the latter could call me here if need be to seek an acceptable program; meanwhile Mr. Becker, who had attended today’s meeting of the Oil Imports Committee² would continue to study the possibilities we had discussed.

The President emphasized that unless the Executive takes some action, Congress will, and there is some doubt that if he were to veto new legislation, the veto would be upheld. I expressed my agreement as to the urgency of doing something effective.”

Dulles

0. Source: Department of State, Central Files, 811.2553/11–1058. Secret; Priority.
1. Dulles was in Seattle for the Ministerial Meeting of the Consultative Committee of the Colombo Plan, November 10–13. Eisenhower was there to address the meeting on November 10. For text of his speech, see Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1958, pp. 312–313.
2. According to a memorandum of a telephone conversation between Weeks and Dulles, November 7, 9:15 a.m., the meeting of the Oil Imports Committee on November 10 would be exploratory and nothing would be done without Dulles knowing about it. (Eisenhower Library, Dulles Papers, General Telephone Conversations)