Office of the Historian

429. Memorandum of Conversation1

Washington, January 23, 1968, 10:30 a.m.

SUBJECT

  • Call of Prime Minister Burnham of Guyana
  • U.S. Assistance

PARTICIPANTS

  • Foreign
    • L. Forbes Burnham, Prime Minister of Guyana
    • H.E. Sir John Carter, Guyanese Ambassador to the United States
  • United States
    • The Secretary Mr. Robert M. Sayre, Acting Assistant Secretary for Inter-American Affairs Mr. John Calvin Hill, Jr., Director, North Coast Affairs
[Page 946]

The Secretary invited the Prime Minister to take five minutes or so to say frankly what he thought the U.S. should be doing in Guyana. The Prime Minister noted with appreciation that the U.S. had been in the forefront of contributors of assistance to his development effort but that, as he had indicated at the Donorʼs Conference in Georgetown, his principal problem had been to raise sufficient local currency financing to make use of the external financing offered. In fact, part of last yearʼs British assistance had to be foregone because local cost financing could not be raised. He understood the Congressional and U.S. balance of payments considerations which put constraints on U.S. assistance for local costs, but it would be useful to have the utmost flexibility in this regard. Meanwhile, he had been exploring with the U.S. the possibility of a PL 480 program (for instance, Guyana was importing $15 million or more in U.S. wheat) which would provide counterpart which could be used for local cost purposes. The Secretary indicated sympathy with regard to the local cost financing problem, which emanated from our balance of payments, and with regard to PL 480. He indicated he would want to take up the PL 480 problem with Messrs. Hill and Sayre later. There followed a brief discussion of the recent U.S. balance of payments problems, in which the Secretary emphasized the effort which had been taken to avoid an adverse impact on investments in and trade with the less developed countries.

  1. Source: National Archives and Records Administration, RG 59, Central Files 1967–69, POL 7 GUYANA. Confidential. Drafted by Hill and approved in S on January 23. The memorandum is part 4 of 5; regarding parts 1–3 and 5, see footnote 1, Document 427. The meeting was held in the Secretaryʼs office.↩