Office of the Historian

261. Memorandum From the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Brzezinski)1

Washington, March 9, 1977

TO

  • The Vice President
  • The Secretary of State
  • ALSO
  • The Secretary of the Treasury
  • The Secretary of Agriculture
  • The Secretary of Commerce
  • The Secretary of Labor
  • The Director, Office of Management and Budget
  • The Chairman, Council of Economic Advisers
  • The United States Representative to the United Nations
  • The Special Representative for Trade Negotiations
  • The Director of Central Intelligence
  • The Assistant to the President for Energy Policy
  • The Administrator, Agency for International Development

SUBJECT

  • Second Stage of PRM 8 Preparation

The work of the Economic Policy Group on PRM 8 (North-South Relations) is close to completion. It will provide the necessary analysis, options and recommendations to complete preparations for the March “Common Fund” negotiations2 and the CIEC negotiations which will follow in May. Since the negotiating calendar has of necessity forced the EPG to concentrate virtually all its attention on short-term economic issues, a decision has been made to constitute a PRC Working Group to examine the longer term and essentially political aspects of North-South relations concerning which the President requested analysis and the presentation of options in the initial PRM 8 instructions.3

The PRC Working Group will fulfill that original assignment through an analysis and presentation of options which focus upon the broad political, security, humanitarian and organizational/institutional [Page 788] aspects of North-South relations seen in a 4–8 year time frame. The Group will use the basic analysis of the EPG as a starting point in relating the economic to the political aspects of North-South relations.

The Working Group will be chaired by Roger Hansen of the NSC. I would appreciate your designation of a representative with whom Mr. Hansen can consult in constituting the Working Group, bearing in mind that the task of the group is to examine the essentially political and overall diplomatic aspects of the North-South relationships, not to repeat the economic exercise already performed by the EPG.4

Zbigniew Brzezinski
  1. Source: Carter Library, National Security Council, Institutional Files, Box 26, PRM–08 1 of 3 [2]. Secret. Hansen sent a draft of this memorandum to Brzezinski and Aaron under cover of a March 9 memorandum; Aaron wrote on Hansen’s memorandum: “ZB—Expect some blowback by State that they are not chairing it.” (Ibid.)↩
  2. The first session of the UN Negotiating Conference on the Common Fund took place March 7–April 3 under the auspices of UNCTAD. For more information, see Yearbook of the United Nations, 1977, p. 472.↩
  3. See Document 254.↩
  4. Hansen noted that, in an earlier draft of this memorandum, his intention in the final paragraph was “to find wording which will give us the flexibility to make sure that we get the people we want on the Group, not simply those assigned by ‘the system’.” Hansen suggested that “[i]f the NSC retains the right to ‘negotiate’ on the constitution of the Group it should be much easier (1) to limit its size (some agencies may not even insist on being represented, and I would hope they don’t), and (2) to assure the presence of the people most qualified to participate fruitfully in this kind of exercise.” The goal, suggested Hansen, was “to produce a document with some provocative and novel options which are still ‘sound’ enough to assure the exercise a serious hearing.” (Memorandum from Hansen to Brzezinski and Aaron, undated; Carter Library, National Security Council, Institutional Files, Box 26, PRM–08 1 of 3 [2])↩