FOREIGN ECONOMIC AND COMMERCIAL POLICY


  imports and increased foreign investments.8 This difference was dis-
  cussed with the Secretary and a decision obtained.9 Greater substan-
  tive difficulties can be anticipated when the Department's program
  for closing the dollar gap is presented to such government agencies
  as the Maritime Commission and the Tariff Commission, to say noth-
  ing of expected Congressional and pressure-group opposition.
    2. Procedural
    The Department originally felt that the NSC was a valuable in-
 strument for interdepartmental coordination of the dollar gap pro-
 gram but Mr. Snyder and Mr. Sawyer 10 objected. It is anticipated that
 Mr. Snyder may still object to our new proposal, i.e., to use new
 high-level groups, with the help of the White House Staff as the
 coordinating mechanism, and he may argue for using the NAC as the
 prime over-all instrument.
 Decisions Necessary
   Decisions are now required on the part of Secretary Snyder and,
 presumably, soon thereafter from     Secretary Sawyer and the other
 Cabinet officials (who have not yet seen the Memorandum) as to
 whether the procedural proposals in the Memorandum are acceptable
 to them.
 Responsibility
   For substance: Mr.Thorp
   For procedure: Mr. Thorp iointly with Mr. Peurifoy"
 Deadline
   Hearings on the ECA legislative program are scheduled to begin
 on February 21. Since the problem of the dollar gap will surely arise
 in this context, it is considered advisable to have interdepartmental
 agreement on a dollar gap "campaign" soon after that date.

 8This issue was discussed at the Under Secretary's meeting on December 12,
 1949. A paper drafted in the Executive Secretariat on December 8, 1949 (Doc.
UM
 D-70/1) had this to say:
 "This difference in emphasis perhaps reflects a deeper difference.
Implicit in
 E's approach is the philosophy that vigorous support of conventional economic
 measures, e.g., reduction of trade barriers, adjustment of exchange rates,
and
 restoration of currency convertibility, will bring about the adjustments
needed for
 sound and self-sustaining economic relationships among the free nations.
Implicit
 in S/P's approach is the view that the U.S. is trying to organize a community
 of free nations, that this community may be, to some degree, uneconomic,
in the
 sense that natural economic forces would exert a centrifugal force on the
political
system (e.g., East-West trade), and that unconventional economic measures
may
be necessary for many years to hold the political system together."
  9No paper has been found that deals explicitly with this action.
  10 Charles Sawyer, Secretary of Commerce.
  John E. Peurifoy, Deputy Under Secretary of State for Administration.


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