Editorial Note
The documentation that follows is concerned directly or indirectly with events related to the Second Session of the Contracting Parties to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade which was held at Geneva, Switzerland August 16–September 14, 1948. The Chairman of the United States Delegation was Leroy D. Stinebower, Special Assistant to the Assistant Secretary of State for Economic Affairs; and the Vice Chairman was John M. Leddy, Adviser, Division of Commercial Policy, Department of State. The advisory staff of the Delegation consisted of Carl D. Corse, Acting Associate Chief, Division of Commercial Policy; Walter Hollis, Office of the Legal Adviser, Department of State; and William L. Marbury, Department of the Army. The United States Delegation files for this Second Session of the Contracting Parties are in Lot 57D278, Boxes 108 and 109. As regards the working files of the Delegation itself, this file seems to be incomplete except for position papers; there is, however, a complete collection of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade documentation of the Session, which is much more elaborate than that of the First Session of the Contracting Parties. The Delegation file is located wholly in Box 108, except for an important file entitled “Most-Favored-Nation Treatment for Germany” (which chronologically spans a greater period than that of the Second Session) which is in Box 109.
One of the most important achievements of the Second Session from the United States point of view was the agreement that was negotiated to extend most-favored-nation treatment to western Germany; and the documentation printed here is largely concerned with this matter. However, the first document, infra, deals with an organizational matter related to the incipient international trade organization that affected the Contracting Parties not only at Geneva but for some years subsequently—the establishment at Geneva at this time of the Interim Commission for the International Trade Organization (ICITO).