448. Memorandum From the Director of the Office of International Economic and Social Affairs, Bureau of International Organization Affairs (McKitterick) to the Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs (Cleveland)1
SUBJECT
- Establishment of Intergovernmental Agency for Satellite Communications
At Mr. Gardner’s request, Jim Simsarian accompanied Mr. Chayes and Mr. Carter to a meeting with Mr. Welch, Mr. Charyk, Mr. Throop and Mr. Cutler of Communications Satellite Corporation yesterday afternoon.
The following significant decisions were reached in principle:
- 1.
- We will go ahead with the negotiation and establishment of an intergovernmental agreement to set up an intergovernmental agency on satellite communications.
- 2.
- We will try to have a caucus with the Europeans in Europe in early January 1964.
- 3.
- We will propose convening an interim intergovernmental conference in February or March 1964 in the United States with Europeans plus a representative group of other countries (including Japan, Canada, Australia) to complete and sign an intergovernmental agreement to set up a provisional intergovernmental agency on satellite communications. This would be an executive agreement and only an interim arrangement pending the completion of an intergovernmental convention later which would be submitted to the Senate for approval. However, the interim agency would go ahead in the meanwhile with the financing and establishment of a communications satellite system. The date of the interim conference will depend upon the date of issue of the Corporation stock in early 1964.
- 4.
- We contemplate convening an intergovernmental conference to draft and complete an intergovernmental convention in September 1964 (or later, depending on developments). This convention would be submitted to the Senate for approval.
Mr. Chayes presented the State Department position very well, and in the light of talks that Mr. Welch and Mr. Charyk have had in Europe, they agreed along the above lines. However, agreement was in principle, and these points have to be pinned down.
[Page 1015]Mr. Throop and Mr. Cutler are preparing a CSC draft of an agreement to be negotiated with other countries (we hope it is in terms of negotiations with other countries rather than Postal Administrations). We are hoping to see this soon. In the meanwhile, Mr. Chayes believes we should be lining up our own views in the Department of State on organizational issues.
Accordingly, at the request of Mr. Gardner, Jim Simsarian has prepared the attached draft which he is discussing with Mr. Carter and Mr. Chayes and others in Legal.2 Jim’s draft includes the principles set forth in earlier CSC proposals, a General Assembly and Administrative Council suggested by the CSC, and the CSC as Managing Firm of the new intergovernmental agency (at least in its interim stage). The draft is in terms of a provisional arrangement pending a more detailed convention to be prepared at the later intergovernmental conference. We need a draft agreed in the Department of State, with other agencies and the Corporation before the end of December for purposes of discussion (at least in terms of principles) with the Europeans at our proposed meeting in early January. This is a tight schedule, but because of the proposed early stock issue and other pressures on the Corporation, we will have to move ahead quickly both here and in negotiations with other countries.
Jim’s draft is based on the structure of the World Bank and EUROCHEMIC in Europe; the Europeans have repeatedly urged the establishment of an agency structured along these lines.