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

290. Memorandum From the President’s Deputy Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Bator) to President Johnson¹

Washington, August 10, 1965.

SUBJECT

• Agriculture in the Kennedy Round

We need instruction from you on an important Kennedy Round decision which might generate some political heat. The issue is whether we should:

1. Table our tariff offers on agriculture on schedule on September 16, even though the European Economic Community will not table. (Because DeGaulle has thrown a monkey-wrench in their machinery, the EEC will not be ready until January 1966 at the earliest.)

2. Postpone tabling until the EEC too is ready to go.

In a memo at Tab I, Chris Herter recommends that we go ahead, leaving out all items of interest to the EEC, and making clear in public that this is the beginning and not the end of the bargaining—that we will withdraw part or all of our offer unless the EEC comes through and we get a balanced bargain both in agriculture and overall.² Chris is strongly supported not only by Bill Roth and his Geneva negotiator, Mike Blumenthal (who is first rate), but also by Dean Rusk personally, as well as Ball and Mann and all the other departments except Agriculture.

Orville Freeman (at Tab II) recommends that we hold up until the Common Market is ready.³ He is skeptical, as is everyone else, about their coming through on agriculture, and is worried about the political heat if we put even conditional offers on the table while the EEC sits on its hands.

The trouble with Orville’s proposal is that it is likely to generate just as much political heat, while damaging our bargaining position. We would either have to bring the industrial negotiations, too, to a halt during the autumn, and risk having the Kennedy Round pronounced dead both here and in Europe. Or, if we push full steam ahead with industry, we will be charged with decoupling agriculture from industry, and throwing in the towel on agriculture without a real try.

No one is a very bullish about what the EEC will in the end offer on agriculture. However, by going forward now, we maximize the chance of getting worthwhile concessions for our farmers from the UK, Canada, and Japan—all important markets for us—and even of getting something useful from the EEC. Chris Herter and his people are right when they say that it is too early to quit, and to risk the collapse of the entire negotiation.

You might wish to hear the arguments in person. However, if you instruct us to go ahead without a meeting, Orville has made it quite clear that he will do his best to keep the agricultural community quiet. (My impression is that he and John Schnittker are much more open-minded about this than some of their staff.)

FMB

Organize meeting with Freeman, Rusk, Herter’s man Blumenthal, the Vice President (?)⁴

Go ahead with Herter’s proposal

Bundy speak to me

Ask the Vice President and Ellington to look at it⁵

1. Source: Johnson Library, Bator Papers, Kennedy Round, 1964–1965 I, Box 12. No classification marking.
2. Document 289.
3. Document 288.
4. This option is checked, and the handwritten names “Ellington” and “McPherson” were added apparently by the President.
5. This option is checked, and the President wrote: “This first. L.” No record of these actions was found. The President did approve tabling the agricultural offers; see Document 292.