122. Summary Notes of 562d Meeting of the National Security Council1
The World Food Problem
The President: This discussion on the current world food problem was called because: 1. The war on hunger is as important as any national security problem we face; 2. The size and urgency of the problem require us to move rapidly to organize a worldwide attack on hunger; and 3. U.S. public opinion polls show a resistance to our assisting foreign countries in the fields of health, welfare, education, and food.
Secretary Rusk: The Development Assistance Committee is meeting in Washington this week. We plan to alert those who are assisting foreign countries in the urgency of the food problem. Up to now, the food producing countries have been looked to to solve the serious world food problem. However, the fight on hunger must include nations other than the food producing nations. We must work out a combination of means [Page 372] to fight hunger. We are disappointed in what the developing states have done to increase their food production. We have also been disappointed by what the donor states in DAC have done in providing food aid.
AID Director Bell: Summarized the AID paper (copy attached).2 He used the charts attached to the paper to illustrate the magnitude of the problem and to emphasize that an agricultural program must be integrated into the national economy of every developing country.3
Secretary Freeman: India is doing what it said it would do in improving seed, developing water resources, and increasing the use and production of fertilizer. Famine is not likely now in India but we must get tough with the Indians to ensure that they achieve a five percent agricultural growth rate.
As to U.S. domestic production, we should return additional U.S. acreage to food production. We need enough food to ensure that famine will not occur in the future. The Indians have lived up to their commitments and we must live up to ours. (Secretary Freeman’s paper and tables referred to are attached.)4
The Vice President: We should increase the amount of wheat carried over into the next year in order to block the speculators and to use it as a means of holding down inflation.
Secretary Freeman: A final decision on the increase in U.S. acreage must be taken no later than Labor Day.
The President: Every official taking part in the Development Assistance Committee meeting this week (the Vice President, Secretary Rusk, Secretary Freeman, Ambassador Bell) should make clear that the United States is deadly serious about a worldwide effort to fight hunger and that it is in the interests of all advanced countries to help to the fullest extent that they can.
[Page 373]Secretary Rusk should prepare plans for a State-AID-Agriculture-BOB effort to prepare studies and recommendations as to the next steps to be taken in the war on hunger.5
A major objective of this Administration is the export of food, health, and education. Top priority must be given to getting Congress to authorize adequate resources for this purpose.
Secretary Fowler: The export of U.S. goods and services is desirable if it is done in such ways as to avoid displacing commercial markets. The export of cash is not. We must get on a burden-sharing basis with other countries because of the effect on our balance of payments position of the movement abroad of U.S. resources. We must insist that international organizations find ways to transfer abroad our resources with the least effect on our balance of payments.
- Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, National Security Council File, NSC Meetings, Vol. 3 Tab 44, 7/19/66, The World Food Problem. Confidential/Sensitive; For the President Only. Drafted by Bromley Smith.↩
- Attached but not printed is a 10-page discussion paper prepared in the Agency for International Development, which David E. Bell approved on July 15. This paper provided background on the worsening world food problem and various short-term and long-term alternative policies the United States might pursue to respond to it.↩
- The charts are not attached but are probably the same ones attached to a July 14 memorandum from Bell, Henry Owen, and Walter J. Stoessel, Jr., to Secretary Rusk, which was part of Tab B in the Department of State briefing book prepared for this NSC meeting. (Department of State, S/S–NSC Files: Lot 72 D 318) Also in this briefing book is a July 19 memorandum from Herbert B. Thompson (S/S) to Secretary Rusk, indicating the Executive Secretariat’s understanding that the White House had made large-scale reproductions of the charts for display at the NSC meeting.↩
- Not found.↩
- In a follow-up memorandum to Secretaries Rusk and Freeman, August 1, Walt Rostow wrote that the President requested that a joint State/AID/Agriculture recommendation “be sent to him promptly on the PL 480 India and Pakistan programs and that additional recommendations covering other PL 480 countries follow shortly.” Rostow further noted that “these recommendations should take into account all aspects of our relations with the countries involved;” and because the United States could not meet fully the requests for P.L. 480 commodities, “that allotments worldwide be taken into account in presenting recommendations on individual country programs.” (Johnson Library, National Security File, Subject File, U.S. Food Aid Policy [1 of 2], Box 15)↩