284. Memorandum From the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs (Schaetzel) to the Deputy Director of the Office of Atlantic Political-Economic Affairs (Percival)1
SUBJECT
- Agriculture in the Kennedy Round
Ted Van Dyk2 passed along to me on a personal basis the fact that the Vice President has become actively interested in the relationship of agriculture to the Kennedy Round. It apparently is the Vice President’s tentative [Page 726] view that the way out of this dilemma is to find the answer to the present agricultural surplus situation in the rapidly growing needs of the less developed countries.
Van Dyk said there had been an initial discussion with Bill Roth and Humphrey would be meeting soon with Schnittker. Van Dyk promised that he would keep me informed and said that at some juncture we would be brought in. He hoped that Tom Enders3 might give some thought to the question.
I said that before one became too enamored with the idea that this provided the answer to the problem one needed to realize that the first issue is how to share the somewhat inadequate commercial market on an equitable basis among the temperate zone agricultural producers. While the farmers might very well agree with the point Van Dyk made, namely that they are interested in the sale of their output rather than being too finicky about where the money comes from, one must face the hard fact that the noncommercial sales are financed by the Congress.
Van Dyk concluded on two points. One was that Humphrey realized that we had to reduce outlandish demands we were making earlier for the massive increase in our share of the commercial market. He also noted that Humphrey saw agriculture in the Kennedy Round as a means of putting some sense into the organization of American agriculture. He did not indicate just how this might be done.