FOREIGN ECONOMIC AND COMMERCIAL POLICY


we should notbe thinking of utilization of the Fund for purposes far
beyond what was conceived of when the Fund was established. This
might be done informally or might even require modification of the
Fund's Articles. We were striving to discover international machinery
to handle some of the difficult problems in the trade field. Even under
GATT we were working toward a kind of trade situation which was
not previously contemplated. The GATT and Fund machinery were
such that it would be easy to have a working arrangement between
countries which were members of both. However, our concern was
likely to be not so much how to get rid of controls as what form con-
trols were going to-take. He thought the 'Council might consider what
the relation of these considerations was to the Fund mechanism and
to United States policy, rather than to limit its attention to the points
suggested in Mr. Gutt's memorandum.
  Mr. Southard said he was not sure What use could be made of the
Fund, assuming we could change the Articles of Agreement. The
Fund had power, for example, to permit drawings against commodity
collateral but that was designed for periods of surplus; rather than
scarcity. It was conceivable that the United States might obtain access
to some foreign currencies through theFund but whether we would
want to make that approach rather than to approach foreign coun-
tries directly in order to obtain credits was an open question. He was
not sure how the Fund could be used.
  Mr. Blaisdell said he was not sure either. He thought the Council
should be working on the whole series of problems that was being
raised relating to blocking assets, materials controls, etc. In a meeting
in Mr. Thorp's office recently, the need for machinery of the OEEC
type had been discussed. The OEEC itself was not international
enough since, for example, the Latin American countries were not
included. He did not know whether one of the possible mechanisms
that might be used was the Fund with an international secretariat
that could deal with problems objectively.
  Mr. Szymczak said this was something we would be able to see more
clearly in the days or weeks ahead. The Gutt proposal allowed for
days or weeks togo by before it was implemented.
  Mr. Southard observed that the Fund and the Bank together consti-
tuted a pool of about 500 technical experts. It would not be impossible
particularly if there were any kind of broad support from the
countries represented in the Fund for commodity controls and agree-
ments, to ,mobilize the Fund and Bank to do some of the work sug-
gested by Mr. Blaisdell. It was not unusual for the Fund to do very
time consuming jobs for organizations such as the Economic Commis-'
sion for Latin America or for the Far East. The use of the Fund's
resources involved different considerations and was bound by certain
requirements.


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