55. Memorandum of Conversation0
SUBJECT
- Polish Participation in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT)
PARTICIPANTS
- The Polish Ambassador
- Mr. Foy D. Kohler, Deputy Assistant Secretary for European Affairs
- Mr. James L. Colbert, EE
The Polish Ambassador handed Mr. Kohler an aide-mémoire (copy attached)1 requesting United States support for (1) inclusion of Poland’s accession to the GATT on the agenda of the forthcoming 13th Session of the GATT and (2) for accession by Poland to the GATT. The Ambassador said he understood that there had been agreement by the experts as to the technical feasibility of Poland acceding to the GATT. Inasmuch as the matter was now to be resolved on policy grounds, he felt it was timely to ask for United States support at the forthcoming session for Poland’s accession to the GATT. He believed that we would be additionally sympathetic in respect to Poland’s interest in the GATT as (according to his understanding), it was our view that accession by Poland to GATT should be a precondition for Polish membership in the IBRD and the IMF.
In receiving the Ambassador’s aide-mémoire, Mr. Kohler said that he would attempt to expedite a decision on this request and expected to be able to make a definitive reply very shortly. Mr. Colbert informally gave his understanding of the situation to the effect that there had been some delays in receiving the reply by the Government of Poland to the questions developed by the GATT experts and there was also further delay involved in the analysis by the experts on the GATT delegations of the answers by the Polish Government. It had accordingly not been possible to put this matter on the agenda of the 13th Session, since it had been felt that many of the Contracting Parties could not take a definitive position on the broad question until their experts had completed consideration of the technical problems involved.
The Ambassador was assured by Mr. Kohler that consideration by the United States Government of the whole problem of the relationship between Poland and the GATT was being dealt with in the most sympathetic [Page 142] and thorough way possible. Mr. Colbert said that he understood that some further additional time would probably be required to get a consensus of the GATT members as to the type of reciprocal obligations which Poland and the Contracting Parties could undertake.