224. Editorial Note
In the final months of 1968, the Cabinet Committee on Balance of Payments began to develop a balance-of-payments program for 1969. Regarding these preparations, see Document 204.
When these preparations were completed, Secretary of the Treasury Fowler sent an explanatory memorandum to President Johnson, December 17, summarizing the recommended balance-of-payments program for 1969, which the Cabinet Committee on Balance of Payments had approved.
Attached to this memorandum was a 16-page letter from Fowler to President Johnson, December 17, which developed eight “underlying principles which your Cabinet Committee on Balance of Payments believes should govern the program in 1969.” His letter also articulated the rationale behind these principles. To his letter, Fowler attached a short letter of approval of these recommendations from the President to Fowler, dated December 18, for the President’s signature.
Also attached to Fowler’s memorandum along with the two letters is a December 17 memorandum from Rostow to the President, which summarizes the two letters. A block for approval of the President’s December 18 letter to Fowler at the end of Rostow’s memorandum is checked. (Johnson Library, National Security File, Subject File, Balance of Payments, Vol. V [1 of 2], Box 3)
The exchange of the two letters was subsequently published in Annual Report of the Secretary of the Treasury on the State of the Finances for the Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 1969 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1970), pages 307–315.