306. Letter From Secretary of Commerce Hodges to the Under Secretary of State (Ball)0
Dear George: This refers to your letter of February 6 about our policy in connection with export control of licenses to the Soviet Bloc.1
I think your letter goes much too far in indicating that there was an agreement which would return us to judging license applications under criteria related only to the Bloc’s war-making potential.
You refer to a meeting with the President on January 24. George, you know this meeting, which was not over one minute’s duration, did not lay any facts before the President, except that you and I wanted to get his quick thinking on whether we should relax our controls in view of the apparent easing of tensions with the Soviet.
I confirmed to the President later the following paragraph:
"Our Administration’s policy on export licenses to these areas is still not as clear-cut as I’d like to see it, but following your suggestion the other day (meaning January 24), we are relenting somewhat on the tight scrutiny we had been employing for the last few months.”
I do not think that this gives any reason for your taking and circulating it that we had agreed with the President on any new approaches.
May I suggest that we review completely the criteria which should guide us. Meanwhile, I am still holding up certain requests for licenses [Page 671] on carbon black, tire cord and fabrics, and other items recently recommended for approval by the ACEP.
Since the responsibility for making the final decision on licenses rests with the Secretary of Commerce, I would like to say that I believe the Secretary or his representative should be present when any discussions are had on the policy affecting export licenses, so that we can be of one mind as to the criteria employed under our controls and, equally important, as to what is said and done publicly. We must keep in mind that we publicize these licenses daily, and remember that the two investigating committees of Congress are maintaining close scrutiny of these lists. In this connection, I would like to say that before we change radically any approval of licenses, it would be our idea to notify in writing both of the congressional committees as to what we are doing.
Sincerely yours,
- Source: Kennedy Library, National Security Files, Kaysen Series, Trade Policy, East-West Trade. Secret. Copies were sent to the President and the Secretary of Defense.↩
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In his February 8 letter to Hodges, Ball stated that the NSC Standing Group had agreed on January 26 “that it would be helpful if I were to set forth and circulate the decision taken by the President in the meeting which I arranged with him and which you attended January 24, 1962 following a meeting of the Export Control Review Board on January 23. In the meeting with the President it was agreed that the decision of August 25 to tighten up in the application of the strategic criteria had been carried farther than the President wished at this time. He felt that the type of proposed denials under review by the Export Control Board indicated a trend toward the application of export control criteria which went farther than he thought desirable.” Ball suggested that “we should return to the testing of license applications against the agreed strategic criteria, i.e. criteria related to the bloc’s war-making potential only, as was done prior to August 25.” (Ibid.) No other record of the January 23 meeting has been found.
Regarding the meeting with President Kennedy on January 24, Hodges stated that “the President has instructed us to ease up on the rather tight controls we have had on the items going to the Soviet Bloc, leaving the judgment and decision as to what is to be approved up to us, of course. He intimated that the situation was somewhat improved, and that we might safely, until further notice, pursue this policy.” (Memorandum from Hodges to Behrman, January 26; Washington National Records Center,RG 40, Department of Commerce, Executive Secretariat Files: FRC 70 A 6114, Office of the Secretary, Alphabetical Folder U-V)
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