Office of the Historian

151. Memorandum From the President’s Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Bundy) to President Johnson1

Washington, March 11, 1964.

SUBJECT

  • Beet Harvesters for the Soviet Union

The Government has been faced for some weeks with an unresolved problem with respect to an application for a license to export five 6-row beet harvesters to the Soviet Union. The Export Control Review Board, set up by President Kennedy in May 1961, has reviewed the matter and is firmly divided.2 All members of the Board but the State Department wish to widen the issue to the more general issue of policy on exports of advanced technical equipment, and there is no doubt that this case does raise a question that will come up again and again in different forms.

The State Department argument, which you looked at briefly at lunch yesterday, is at Tab 1.3 The argument of the Secretary of Commerce [Page 451] is at Tab 2.4 And the argument of the Secretary of Agriculture is at Tab 3.5 In summary, the State Department feels that beet harvesters are non-strategic and should be sold without fuss. Agriculture thinks that these particular advanced beet harvesters will help the Soviet Union in the cold war of economic competition. Commerce thinks that the Soviets will use these harvesters as prototypes and make more of their own, and it would reject the license unless the Soviets agreed to make concessions on other issues, like patent protection, commodity agreements, and other commercial issues. Defense sides with Commerce. Everyone agrees that the Soviets would make no such concession for a sale of this sort.

The parties differ as to whether, under the policy of the Kennedy Administration, this sale would have been permitted. The matter is not really relevant, since you will want to decide for yourself, but to me it is self-evident that President Kennedy would have approved this sale. His last memo on the general subject is at Tab 4.6 The economic warriors who see only the Soviet advantage in every trade never persuaded him, any more than they did President Eisenhower, but they come back to the surface in each new Administration.

You will already have seen how splendidly impartial I am on this issue. And in the light of this unhelpful partisanship, as well as the exist-ence of strong feelings in Commerce and Agriculture, you may wish to have a brief meeting of the interested parties before you decide.

Another advantage of a meeting is that you can state your own views clearly at a time when members of the Board are about to be asked for their opinion by the Foreign Relations Committee.

McG. B.

Harvesters approved for export7

Harvesters not approved for export

Call a meeting

Speak to me

  1. Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, Subject File, Trade, East-West, Vol. I [2 of 2], Box 49. Secret.↩
  2. See Documents 149 and 150.↩
  3. None of the tabs is attached. Tab 1 is presumably an undated Department of State position paper on the issue, which is attached to a memorandum from Benjamin H. Read to Buddy, March 3. (Johnson Library, National Security File, Subject File, Trade, East-West, Vol. I [2 of 2], Box 49)↩
  4. Tab 2 is probably a February 24 memorandum from Hodges to Buddy, not found, which Freeman briefly referenced in a March 31 memorandum to President Johnson. (Department of State, Central Files, STR 6) Also see Document 150.↩
  5. Not found.↩
  6. Not further identified here, but Tab 4 may be Kennedy’s memorandum cited in footnote 3, Document 150.↩
  7. None of the options is checked.↩