Office of the Historian

318. Letter From Secretary of Commerce Hodges to Secretary of State Rusk0

Washington, September 12, 1962.

Dear Dean: Thank you for your letter of September 5th on negotiation with other countries of expanded controls over, and a code of fair practices on, trade with the Soviet bloc.1 As you will recall in the discussion at the July 17th meeting of NSC, I coupled the approaches to our Allies on these two issues. I have since that meeting reported to both Congressman Kitchin and Senator Dodds and stated in my press conference today that we would seek multilateral agreement with our Allies on these aspects of trade with the bloc. These statements were in accord with my understanding of the discussion at the NSC, in which the President told the two of us to see what could be done towards multilateral agreement on both expanded controls and peaceful trade, even though it appeared that we might not succeed.

I, of course, accept your judgment as to whether now is the appropriate time to seek an expanded level of controls with our Allies, [Page 705] particularly to offset the economic warfare thrust of the bloc. But I had a clear understanding from the NSC discussion that we would seek an appropriate time for such discussions.

It was my further clear understanding that after the multilateral discussions, setting the limits of beneficial trade, we would seek to develop an agreed code of fair practices for trade with State-trading countries. I am glad to have the suggested code which you sent and am having it examined by my staff. I am asking Dr. Behrman to pursue the technical aspects of the code with Assistant Secretary Johnson.2

Sincerely yours,

Luther H. Hodges3
  1. Source: Department of State, Central Files, 460.119/10-1962. Secret.↩
  2. See Document 317 and footnote 3 thereto.↩
  3. A memorandum attached to the source text from Ruth H. Kupinsky (EUR/RPE) to Cleveland (RPE), October 19, indicates that Jack N. Behrman, Assistant Secretary of Commerce for International Affairs, discussed East-West trade with Nathaniel McKitterick (OES) and Walter M. Kotschnig (IO), “suggesting that we use ECE to develop studies on trade between market economies and state trading companies, on the assumption that we look to an expansion of trade.”↩
  4. Printed from a copy that indicates Hodges signed the original.↩