International Trade Files: Lot 57D284, Box 104
The Vice Chairman of the United States Delegation (Wilcox) to the Chief, Division of Commercial Policy (Brown)
Dear Win: I have received your memoranda of telephone conversations, dated January 29, with Percival, of the British Embassy, and Castan, of the French Embassy.1 I have not told the Delegations here flatly that it would be absolutely impossible for the Administration to present the Charter to Congress this year. I am sorry that this information had to come to them in a round-about way.
I had hoped that the Charter might be presented to Congress in such a way that it would go before a committee that would give it a fair hearing and consider its merits and demerits, advantages and disadvantages, in a calm atmosphere, with the emphasis on its foreign policy aspects and its general significance for international economic cooperation. In short, I had hoped that the Charter would go to the Foreign Relations Committee of the Senate on its merits.
The inevitable consequence of the decision to drop the Charter and push for the renewal of the Trade Agreements Act, it seems to me, will be this:—your discussion of the Trade Agreements renewal will drive you into a discussion of the GATT; consideration of the GATT will drive you into a cross-examination on the ITO Charter. The Charter will thus be dragged in by the heels, without any opportunity for a favorable or friendly presentation. The Geneva and Havana drafts will have their first Congressional consideration before the most hostile and violently prejudiced forum in either house of Congress, the Committee on Ways and Means. The result will be that the Charter will be politically discredited before any opportunity is provided to give it a fair hearing. The only way I can think of to avoid this is formally to present the Charter to the Senate as soon as the Havana Conference closes. Can you think of any other way?
Yours as ever,