Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968, Volume VIII, International Monetary and Trade Policy

183. Memorandum From the Director, Office of Industrial Nations, Department of the Treasury (Widman) to the Acting Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for International Affairs (Petty)¹

Washington, February 28, 1968.

SUBJECT

• Recent Meeting of the OECD Tourism Committee

I find that there is an extremely interesting story behind the report of the recent meeting of the OECD Tourism Committee²—one which should not be widely circulated but which I think you ought to know.

The official representative of the United States at this Tourism Committee meeting was Mr. John Black of the U.S. Travel Service. He was the only person from Washington who attended the session. He was actually accompanied in the room by Jim Ammerman and John Ferriter of the Permanent Mission to the OECD.

One of the principal agenda items, and the only one of real interest to the Committee, was the scheduled discussion of the prospective U.S. measures to discourage foreign travel by U.S. residents. Apparently, in the middle of the afternoon session the Irish delegate presented specific language for the Committee report which was extremely critical of the proposed U.S. action. His proposal also contained language which accused the United States of not making a serious effort to promote foreign travel to the United States, citing as evidence the fact that the budget of the U.S. Travel Service was very low and that the Travel Service was closing some of its offices overseas.

Mr. Black did not oppose this language. He indicated that the United States would abstain on the Irish proposal and then announced to his colleagues that it was necessary for him to leave the meeting to catch a plane at about 4:00 for Geneva. He turned the U.S. chair over to Jim Ammerman and left the room.

Ammerman was appalled at the Irish proposal, which other members of the Committee were anxious to adopt. He refused to accept it. Finally, after long arguments failed, he reminded the Committee that it was a plenary session and operated on an unanimity rule. He was on very dangerous grounds because Black had announced that the United States would abstain. Nevertheless, he struggled with the language for quite some period of time and eventually managed to persuade the other delegates that the United States was making a serious effort to promote foreign travel to the United States and that it was not feasible for the United States to achieve the required balance of payments gains in the required period of time through this measure alone. He finally was able to get the language which was reported by cable, but, having in mind Black’s earlier instructions, he did abstain on the final vote. This is an extraordinarily unusual situation.

The performance left the impression that Mr. Black was not in full sympathy with the proposal being advanced in the United States to restrain travel abroad and that he was more interested in getting the Committee to criticize the failure of the United States to increase the U.S.T.S. budget than in toning down the critical language about U.S. efforts to restrain travel abroad by Americans.

It may also be worth noting that when Black was asked why the United States proposed to discriminate in favor of the Western Hemisphere in its travel restraints, he explained that Western Hemisphere countries were willing to hold dollars whereas the others insisted on converting them into gold. It was this factor, he told the Committee, which caused the United States to draw the line between the Western Hemisphere and the rest of the world.

The Paris Mission did not feel that it was diplomatic to report what had happened in connection with this meeting and it would probably not be advisable to have the situation widely known. At the same time it does suggest that if the Treasury wishes to have its view on the question of travel restraint accurately and forcibly presented at any future meetings of the Committee, it would be inadvisable to have Mr. Black designated as the head of the U.S. Delegation. Under the circumstances, perhaps it would be better to take the line that, given the request to minimize unnecessary travel, no one from Washington should go to these meetings and then the matter could be left in the hands of the Mission where, provided the formal instructions were adequate, Messrs. Ammerman and Ferriter would forcefully present the approved position.³

1. Source: Johnson Library, Fowler Papers, International Balance of Payments—Classified Material: 1968 B/P Travel Expenditures Restraints [1 of 2], Box 46. Limited Official Use; No Other Distribution. An attached note from Douglass Hunt, Special Assistant to the Secretary of the Treasury, to Barr, April 8, mentions that Fowler wanted Barr to take up Widman’s memorandum with Howard J. Samuels, Under Secretary of Commerce.
2. No other written report of this meeting has been found.
3. A second note attached to the source text from Barr to Fowler, May 20, reads: “Black resigned today—it is my understanding that he resigned by request. Frankly I thought that was going too far but Commerce evidently felt less of him than we.”