108. Memorandum of a Conversation With the President, White House, Washington, April 18, 19561
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The President spoke at length on his ideas concerning trade. He felt that people approach the matter too narrowly. It is a certainty that nations will trade with each other. We should concentrate on copper and a half dozen items of most advanced machinery and electronics and encourage trade in everything else. There is a feeling that only the Communists would benefit from trade. He is confident that the West has skill in trading such that a net advantage would probably lie with them. He did see positive value in pressing forward with trade with the Satellites in Eastern Europe. Admiral Radford said that we are down to a very few items in terms of trade with the Satellites. We should try, however, to avoid giving them advanced items, thus letting them save the developmental costs which are frequently quite great. The President commented on how he understood Mr. Baruch has completely changed his view as to trade—two years ago he thought we should be very restrictive; today he would make trade completely free. Admiral Radford commented on how the Communists use their trade delegations to “bore in”—also, how they use their trade as a weapon for other objectives. The President said that if it were possible to get agreement between State, Commerce, Defense, and ODM as to what trade means to the world, it might then be possible to get through a national program in spite of the tendencies to demagoguery on this matter and the [Page 339] pressures for restriction arising out of our high prices and high wage rates.2
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- Source: Eisenhower Library, Whitman File, Eisenhower Diaries. Confidential. Drafted by Goodpaster.↩
- In a telephone conversation on April 19, President Eisenhower and Secretary Humphrey discussed East-West trade: “President said he was very worried about the whole thing, felt that we had been sticking our heads in the sand. Talking about committee, President said that they had been too long influenced by the McCarthy line—going to have a hard time (with foreign trade bill). President said that what they were trying to do was to dam up the trade currents in the world and they won’t be dammed up. Humphrey said he was impressed with Radford’s arguments, but President said after all Radford was a military expert and that this was in another field. Humphrey agreed it was ridiculous to treat China other than we treat Russia. Humphrey said it was ‘seeking to lock the barn door after the horse was gone.’” (Ibid.)↩