Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952–1954, Western Europe and Canada, Volume VI, Part 1

Bruce Mission files, lot 57 M 38, “U.S. Loan—Implementation”

No. 221
Louis C. Boochever of the Office of European Regional Affairs to Robert Eisenberg of the Office of the United States Representative to the European Coal and Steel Community, at Luxembourg

official use only
official–informal

Washington, September 8, 1954.

Dear Bob: Sorry I missed you on your return through Washington. I hope your vacation was a great success, and that you are all invigorated to do battle again for Uncle Sam.

As is all too obvious, the Department is currently engaged in a post-EDC reexamination of our European policies and tactics in the wake of the sinking of the EDC. I suspect you have at least as good an idea where this may be heading as we do here at the working level. For the time being, I am taking my cue on our attitude towards European integration and European organizations chiefly from the following paragraph in the Secretary’s comment on the defeat of the EDC:¹

“The United States stands ready to support the many in Western Europe who, despite their valiant efforts, are left in grave anxiety. We need not feel that the European idea is dead merely because, in one of the six countries, a present majority seems against one of its manifestations. There is still much on which to build and those foundations should not be shaken by any abrupt or any ill-considered action of our own.”

To my mind this implies that we should continue to support and assist the unifying forces and institutions within Europe, among which the CSC is preeminent. RA is also proposing in the reexamination process that we maintain our emphasis on economic and political integration wherever practicable, despite the collapse of EDC.

Our CSC relations are currently complicated, to say the least, by the European restrictions on imports of U.S. coal, coinciding with a continuing depressed condition in the U.S. coal industry. Ruth is following closely the FOA plan to dispose of 10 million tons of U.S. coal abroad and is writing you on its current status.

One matter I want to call to your attention is the forthcoming review in the GATT of the CSC operations as they relate to the GATT waiver.² The CSC members are required under the waiver to submit an annual report to the GATT on the measures taken towards the full application of the Treaty. Last year’s report was rather perfunctory, giving cursory attention to the issues of special interest to the other Contracting Parties—particularly those dealing with exports and imports of the Community, tariffs and quotas, export cartel activity, etc. Also it was suggested by the GATT that the report would be more useful if extracts of principal legislative and administrative measures were annexed to the report, rather than a mere list of such actions. Given the general uncertainty about progress towards European unification, the uneasiness of various CP’s about the CSC, and U.S. concern over the coal imports and cartels, a solid and effective presentation by the CSC members of their accomplishments, problems and intentions, could be especially helpful at this time. It would probably be useful to discuss the report with the High Authority staff to see how it is coming and to register the U.S. interest in it.

You will notice from an instruction which is en route (to Bonn, repeated Luxembourg and Paris) that we may be raising the question of the German coal restrictions in the GATT session. The general issue of Belgian dollar restrictions will be carried over on the agenda as a continuation of last year’s item, and their coal restrictions will come up at that time.

Another development of interest is that the U.S. GATT delegation this year will include Congressional representatives. Three of these have now been named—Representative Simpson of Pennsylvania, and Senators Gore and Cooper of Tennessee. All three have a keen interest in the U.S. coal industry and exports, and can be expected to follow carefully the CSC performance.

Treasury is pressing the question of availability of local currencies for the CSC loan, and messages have gone to The Hague and Bonn, inquiring about currency availabilities. I have asked that these communications be repeated to Luxembourg (Bruce Mission) and Paris Edcol, so they should reach you eventually, although belatedly.

Incidentally, we have checked on the question of message indicators, and have been informed that we cannot use the Edcol tag for messages to Luxembourg because a count of the communications to Luxembourg has shown that the volume of traffic does not warrant a special series. For the time being, I will continue to label items for Luxembourg with “for Bruce Mission”, but I am not sure whether we will be allowed to continue this practice. The communications people here say that you should be able to arrange with the Luxembourg Legation to secure prompt distribution on all messages relating to the CSC, coal, steel, or other topics of special interest to you. I understand that this question of distribution has plagued you a bit, but hope that you can work out a satisfactory system with the Legation.

Returning to the loan, has there been any further word on the open-end pledge? We would also be interested in knowing whether there has been any reaction in the European business community or elsewhere to the High Authority’s statement on its lending and financial policies. Dave Richardson of FOA is coming over tomorrow or Thursday to propose some reporting procedures under the loan agreement, which you will recall were left open. You will probably hear from us on this matter, after a normal bureaucratic lag to permit clearances, etc.

Here in RA, a leading development is that Bob Barnett has come in to take Miriam Camp’s former position as Officer-in-Charge of Economic Organization Affairs. Bob was formerly Economic Adviser in WE and before that had a distinguished career in Far Eastern Affairs. We are lucky to have acquired such a talented and congenial boss.

[Here follows a paragraph of personal remarks.]

Kindest regards,

Lou

P.S. Please give my best to Stan Cleveland, and relay to him any of the above thoughts that you think he would want to be in on.

1. For the complete text of this statement by Dulles on Aug. 31, see Department of State Bulletin, Sept. 13, 1954, pp. 363–364.
2. This is a reference to the Ninth Session of the Contracting Parties to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which was scheduled to meet in Geneva, Switzerland, beginning Oct. 28, 1954.