Office of the Historian

148. Memorandum From Secretary of State Rusk to President Johnson1

Washington, January 14, 1964.

SUBJECT

  • Export-Import Bank Activities in Soviet Bloc Countries

I concur in the two memoranda submitted to you by Harold Linder, President of Export-Import Bank, requesting Presidential Determinations with regard to the Bank’s extending short and medium term credit guarantees on transactions with Yugoslavia and for guarantees in connection with the sale and US agricultural products to the USSR and enumerated European Soviet Bloc countries.2 These Determinations are called for pursuant to Title III of the Foreign Aid and Related Agencies Appropriation Act of 1964.3

Both of these requests for Determinations are presently limited to the aforesaid guarantees. These are the types of transactions on which the Bank has been requested to move most immediately by our exporters.

Additional Determinations for other types of Bank financing may be sought as the Bank proceeds with its examination of various requests for its assistance in financing US exports to these areas. These Determinations might provide for Bank participation in longer term credits to Yugoslavia, and perhaps one or more of the European Bloc countries, or for guarantees on US non-agricultural product transactions with the latter. For the present, however, the two requests now being submitted to you are limited to covering the most immediate business at hand.

Dean Rusk 4
  1. Source: Department of State, Central Files, AID (US) 15–10. No classification marking. Drafted by George S. Springsteen (U).↩
  2. Linder’s two memoranda to President Johnson, both dated January 10, and his January 10 covering memorandum to Secretary Rusk and McGeorge Bundy are attached. Also attached are a memorandum from Benjamin Read (S/S) to Secretary Rusk, January 11, summarizing Linder’s memoranda and indicating that Rusk’s January 14 memorandum had the concurrences of EUR, L, the Under Secretary, and McGeorge Bundy, and two undated draft Presidential determinations, one for each of Linder’s memoranda. None of the attachments is printed.↩
  3. P.L. 88–258, approved January 6, 1964. (77 Stat. 857)↩
  4. Printed from a copy that indicates Rusk signed the original.↩