285. Memorandum From the Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs (Mann) to the President’s Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Bundy)1
SUBJECT
- International Sugar Conference
The United States will participate in the International Sugar Conference beginning in Geneva on September 20. The Conference has been in [Page 712] preparation for over a year. A sugar agreement is ardently desired by sugar producing countries in Latin America, the British Commonwealth, and Asia since sugar prices have been and are today very low. The need to do something about depressed sugar prices is now a major theme of the new United Nations Trade and Development Board.
The purpose of United States participation will be to help draft an agreement which restricts Cuban sugar exports to the free world and subjects Cuba to effective controls on her sugar production, stocks, and trade and market practices. In the absence of such restrictions Cuba could, if her Soviet aided production program is successful, engage in economic warfare designed to force other sugar producers to the wall. The most vulnerable producers include some in Latin America and Taiwan. We would make sure, as in the past, that the agreement did not affect the provisions and operations of the U.S. sugar program.
In 1961 Cuba refused to accept the agreement and quotas offered her and the conference broke up. This may well occur again. If the conference breaks up and Cuba is held responsible, a basis will have been established to negotiate an agreement without Cuba, which denies her access to the most profitable markets.
If Cuba proves unwilling to accept the onus of breaking up this conference and decides to participate in the kind of agreement we plan to negotiate, we believe this would be to our advantage. Nevertheless, our final position will be reserved since we will still have to decide, after careful review of the provisions, whether to sign the agreement and submit it for Senate advice and consent.
We have consulted with the U.S. sugar industry and on the Hill with Senators Fulbright and Hickenlooper and Representative Poage. They agree that we should participate in the Conference and keep open the decision as to what action to take regarding any agreement which may emerge from the Conference. Senator Carlson did not take a position on participating in the Conference but said he thought he would oppose a sugar agreement as he had opposed all other international agreements.
- Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, Subject File, Sugar Legislation, Vol. 2, Box 45. Confidential.↩