315. Current Economic Developments0
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COCOM COMPLETES 1962 LIST REVIEW
The Coordinating Committee on Export Controls (COCOM) has completed its annual review of 1962 of the international lists. Changes will be effective October 1. The lists define strategic items over which the Free World exercises control of exports to the Soviet bloc. The major part of the review was devoted to the electronics category of the embargo list. This reflects the strategic importance of advancing electronics technology in today’s age of rocketry and space exploration.
The results of the review, which was conducted in Paris April 1-July 13, 1962, are highly satisfactory from our standpoint. There were no significant differences of opinion with the British similar to those which characterized the review last year. This was due in large part to successful high-level policy discussions with the UK here in February and subsequent bilateral working level meetings in London. (See page 1, February 27, 1962 issue.)1
Agreed Changes
The participating countries in the 1962 list review took some 90 actions affecting 74 items as defined in International List I (embargo), List IV (watch list) and the Munitions List. New important items added to the embargo list include: electric arc devices, electron beam welders, some 15 fluorocarbon compounds, gravity meters, and special batteries or power sources. Most of these new items embody advanced technology and in the US are related to production for or use in military and space exploration programs. The only new item of consequence we had proposed for embargo and which did not get acceptance was multifuel engines.
Jig borers, forging hammers, and picric acid were deleted from the embargo list as were certain type of transistors and magnetic metals, in view of the unanimous judgment of COCOM that they no longer meet the strategic criteria for embargo.
Many more items were redefined. Embargo coverage was narrowed for 22 IL-I items, expanded for 17 items, and clarified for 6 items. Twelve [Page 701] of the 67 IL-I items discussed were left unchanged after an exchange of views in COCOM on strategic considerations.2
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- Source: Washington National Records Center, RG 59, E/CBA/REP Files: FRC 72 A 6248, Current Economic Developments. Official Use Only. The source text comprises p. 17 of the issue.↩
- Document 307.↩
- Further documentation on the COCOM 1962 List Review is in airgrams Polto A-157, July 23, and Polto A-208, July 31, from Paris. (Department of State, Central Files, 460.509/7-2362 and 460.509/7-3162) A detailed report on the 1962 COCOM List Review was enclosed in a letter from Dutton to Kitchin, September 20, and in Rusk’s letters to Vice President Johnson and interested Congressional committee chairmen, September 27. (Ibid., 460.509/9-2062 and 460.509/9-2762) For Mutual Defense Assistance Control Act (Battle Act) Lists, promulgated October 1, 1962, reflecting the changes in the International Lists, see Department of State, The Battle Act Report, 1963, Mutual Defense Assistance Control Act of 1951—Sixteenth Report to Congress (Washington, December 1963), pp. 16-20.↩