Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961–1963, Volumes VII, VIII, IX, Arms Control; National Security Policy; Foreign Economic Policy, Microfiche Supplement

373. Memorandum from Freeman to President Kennedy, May 5¹

May 5, 1961

SUBJECT

• Agriculture and Problems of Foreign Policy

For several works I have wanted an opportunity to discuss some important questions with you, but under the current pressures of problems relating to Laos, Viet Nam, Cuba, et al, I have not felt it appropriate to take any of your time. If and when this pressure lets up a bit, I would appreciate the opportunity to discuss with you the matters that I am presenting here, because I believe they have an important relationship to the immediate problems we face in these trouble spots in the world.

We in the Department of Agriculture are particularly concerned with (1) the use of food as an instrument for economic development and human well-being in the world; (2) the development of an efficient agriculture in the developing nations; and (3) the development of a political climate and political instruments under which people in these nations can grow toward both freedom and a higher standard of living.

I am concerned, not only as Secretary of Agriculture but also personally, with this third point, because in a very small way years ago we took part in some counter measures which resulted in the effective purging of communist influence in our political party back home. At that time we learned that we can’t beat something with nothing—that you have to both have a program and be decisive and tough minded in carrying it forward if you expect to meet the kind of financial zeal and twenty-four-hour-on-the-job service that the communist [illegible in the original] mount so effectively.

There are a number of areas which relate to this objective with which we are concerned.

A. I have previously reported to you how we are seeking, for the first time, to assemble adequate information on the nutritional needs around the world and the effectiveness of our food programs. We organized, for this purpose, an interagency committee headed by our director of the Foreign Agricultural Service. Its first report, a preliminary evaluation of the world’s nutritional gap, has been issued. The second step in this study will be an evaluation of the results of our own food programs.

I am asking that this second phase, originally scheduled for completion in September, be speeded up—and expanded to include the state of agricultural technological development in underdeveloped areas. I would hope that this report will be useful to the new economic aid agency, so that it would not need to start with fast gathering but could immediately get on to the job.

B. I would like to bring to your attention some of my thinking in connection with this new economic aid agency. I hope that it will be so set up and administered that it can be most effective in planning and negotiating the kind of economic aid programs that will best serve our foreign policy and our national interest. At the same time I am concerned lest it be set up in such a way that would militate against making the best possible use of our resources. I believe that the latter would be the result if the new economic aid agency sought, in itself, to operate every program for economic aid.

Let us be more specific. It would appear to us that the new economic aid agency should certainly have the central responsibility for economic assistance as a whole and for each particular country involved, and that in carrying out that responsibility it should be charged with planning, coordination and negotiation, with authority to make final recommendations to the President. In that planning it would, of course, need to consult with other Departments:—for example, it could not plan a food program except in consultation with agriculture. Once the plan was made, I would envisage that the economic aid agency would have over-all direction of the total program in each country.

At this point, however, it seems to us that the actual operation of each program should be carried out by the Department (be it Agriculture, Health, Education and Welfare, or Commerce) in which that function normally resides and in which are found the expert knowledge and experience. Only in this fashion can the maximum resources of each operating agency be available.

I am sure such a plan of operation could be worked out satisfactorily. As I envision it, the new economic aid agency would assign, to each country for which a program had been worked out, a director who, with the assistance of whatever staff might be necessary, would be responsible for the total program. But under his coordination and broad general direction—and under his final authority—there would be assigned to the Department of Agriculture the responsibility for these parts of the program that deal with distribution of food and assistance in developing local agricultural programs. Those operating the agricultural programs would report both to the economic aid director in the country concerned and to this Department, just as our foreign agricultural attaches now report to the ambassador in the country to which they are assigned and to this Department.

In this matter I believe we could get the most effective operation of our program both in the field of food utilization and in the field of technical assistance to agriculture. Any other form of organization would, it seems to me, involve a duplication of both personnel and work and would tend to militate against the assuring of our highest ability for the economic aid program. To succeed in this important field we will need access to all of the best of our human resources—in ability and experience. It hardly seems possible that a new operating agency could duplicate all the scientific and technological resources of ability that we have in the many agencies of the Department of Agriculture.

I would suggest to you that our capacity is limited in terms not only of dollars, but of personnel. It will not be utilized to the fullest, if the foreign economic aid agency attempts to operate each specific program on its own by calling an specialists from the present operating agencies. For one thing, these will be an absence of permanency, and it will be exceedingly difficult to recruit and hold the most competent people. As a result, the present high level of morals, efficiency and knowledge in our operating agencies could not be as effectively harnessed as if the agencies themselves conducted the actual operations.

In this connection I would emphasize the great variety of our resources and operating programs, ranging from the Extension Service, Rural Electrification Administration, Farmers Land Administration, and our Foreign Agricultural service to all of our scientific and technological services. I would point out how much there is in common between the kind of programs we are launching in our own rural distressed areas and programs needed in many foreign areas. We have experience, ideas and know-how in this field that can be of value and should be used.

C. I believe that the present situation in the developing areas of the world, and particularly in most of these in which the threat of communism is the greatest, is such that there is a tremendous opportunity and a tremendous challenge for the kind of leadership that we find in agriculture in this country. It is clear, it seems to me, that the communist appeal is being made to farmers and peasants rather than to workers. Even in a kind of cynical paragraph, in a recent news magazine, forecasting what might happen in Laos and predicting that Soviet and Red China military advisers would be invited in and that technicians from India, Cambodia, Burma, and Thailand would also be invited, the forecast concluded “and from the United States a few agricultural experts”. This indicates not only our area of leadership but our area of challenge and opportunity.

I believe that in this regard we ought to use every resource we have, openly and clandestinely, publicly and privately. We need to concern ourselves with means whereby we can assist and develop local leadership for freedom, to combat communist infiltration.

I think that in the one single area of building cooperatives and credit unions in the rural areas of the countries involved the opportunity is tremendous. I believe that some of this could be done through government and some through our cooperative and credit union leadership, perhaps with essential government aid. There exists convincing evidence of the success that kind of effort has already achieved in the very small and limited fields in which it has been tried.

I would like to point out two special advantages to be expected from this kind of encouragement of cooperatives in the countries in which we find it most essential to bolster the force of freedom: (1) Economic development through cooperatives avoids the tinge of “imperialism,” that, whether justified or not, is bound to be a by-product of private development in the hands of private corporations. Yet cooperatives in this country are strong in both experience and talent to provide the leadership for economic development particularly in rural areas that is so badly needed.

(2) Cooperatives are by their very nature organizations of people through which could be developed democratic leadership among the citizens of the country involved, and such democratic leadership could be most effective politically in opposing the communist threat and in building strong, democratic friendly governments. We can assist in finding and developing such leadership most effectively by means of working through organizations of the people themselves—and labor unions and cooperatives provide the most fertile fields for this kind of effort. Here in agriculture we not only have knowledge and experience in organizing and assisting cooperatives, but we have the nucleus of a fine relationship with voluntary cooperative associations and federations here in the United States.

I have planned to reactivate an advisory committee on cooperatives that used to perform an important function in connection with the Department but was allowed to languish for the past eight years. As it was previously used, this committee met with and advised the Secretary of Agriculture with regard to the domestic scene and proved to be a helpful instrument. I have intended all along to reactivate this committee but it now occurs to me that in reactivating it, and at its first meeting, I might ask the cooperative leaders that constitute this committee what they can do for their country instead of what we can do for them. If you approve, I would like to mention specifically in my call for the first meeting of this committee a request that they come prepared to discuss to what extent and in what ways the cooperatives of the United States can help us to meet the challenge we face in the developing countries of the world in which democracy is not yet secure and in which we must exert every possible effort to combat the threat of communism.

1. “Agriculture and Problems of Foreign Policy.” No classification marking. 5 pp. Washington National Records Center, RG 286, AID Administrator Files: FRC 65 A 481, Administration, FY 1962.