31. Letter From the Deputy Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs (Dillon) to the Permanent Representative at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Burgess)0

Dear Randy: I have been looking forward with genuine pleasure to attending the OEEC Ministerial Meeting, and it was only at the last moment that it became clear that my leaving would not be possible.

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The staff in the Department and the people in Treasury have been making intensive preparations for the past week or so. We had several briefing sessions at which we concentrated on what seemed to be clearly the two most important problems for Ministerial consideration, discussion of the economic situation and the free trade area negotiations. I thought it might be helpful for you to have a bit of the flavor of things here as they had developed up to the time my plans were changed. Lane Timmons and John Leddy can give you the details of our thinking in light of the meetings I had with them.

On the economic situation, the Treasury Department staff has been worried that Ministers might discuss the subject in such a way as to imply that the United States should change its internal economic policies. They were specifically worried about the wording of any possible resolution which might come out of the meeting. They also were concerned lest future meetings of Working Party 19 be formalized in a manner which would change the basic character of the Working Party’s activities. To this end they suggested that we make very clear the fact that we are only associate members of the OEEC and took part in its activities on a quite different basis from the other members. Our view in State was that we should not attempt to emphasize this difference and should be flexible regarding future meetings of Working Party 19.

At a meeting which I just had with Bob Anderson we reached general agreement along the following lines:

1.
That while we should mention gently the fact that we are an associated country as outlined in the paragraph of the suggested speech on this subject,1 we should tread very lightly in this regard and not emphasize the difference between the U.S. and other countries.
2.
That we should seek to ensure that any resolutions coming out of the meeting should be so drafted as to clearly apply only to the member countries so that there could be no feeling that recommendations regarding how the U.S. should handle her economy were being made. We also agreed that the best way to achieve this result was by a bilateral meeting between you and the British delegation prior to the public meeting, so as to avoid the necessity of arguing about the wording of any resolutions that might be submitted to the full meeting.
3.
That we should not object to a regular schedule of future meetings of Working Party 19, but that we should state our view that such meetings would only be really fruitful if they continued to be informal in nature and avoided to the maximum extent possible formal resolutions.

John Leddy was present at this discussion with Bob Anderson and can fill you in on any details.

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The free trade area problem is one to which we have devoted much thought recently. Here again, I thought the delegation would have to have considerable flexibility in view of the many imponderables. The basic element in our position is that while we strongly favor the free trade area idea, we do not agree with the British that there is any particular magic in the January 1, 1959 date. Had it turned out from informal discussions with the French that they could not proceed now, I had intended to suggest to Heathcoat-Amory that the British relax their pressure for the present in hopes that the French position might be changed later. We have received several reports recently suggesting that De Gaulle has told his people to find some way to reach a compromise agreement. I hope that events the next few days will confirm these reports but assume that final agreement by January 1 would probably not be possible in any case.

I know that all of the Washington participants will support you in every possible way. My best wishes for a successful meeting.

With best wishes,

Sincerely,

Douglas Dillon2

P.S. I have just this minute received your letter of July 213 and it is apparent that we are thinking right along the same lines.

  1. Source: Department of State, Central Files, 840.00/7–2558. Confidential.
  2. Not found.
  3. Printed from a copy that bears this typed signature.
  4. In his July 21 letter to Dillon, Burgess commented on the presentation to be made by the U.S. representative on economic conditions. (Department of State, Central Files, 440.002/7–2158)