Office of the Historian

279. Summary of Conclusions of a Policy Review Committee Meeting1

Washington, October 11, 1977, 3:30 p.m.

SUBJECT

  • Foreign Aid

PARTICIPANTS

  • White House
  • Zbigniew Brzezinski
  • Peter Bourne
  • Henry Owen
  • Robert Ginsburgh
  • Defense
  • Charles Duncan
  • Dr. Ellen L. Frost
  • Treasury
  • C. Fred Bergsten
  • OSTP
  • Frank Press
  • Anne Keatley
  • AID
  • John J. Gilligan
  • Philip Birnbaum
  • Commerce
  • Stanley Katz
  • Frank Weil
  • USUN
  • Melissa Wells
  • State
  • Warren Christopher
  • Richard Cooper
  • Anthony Lake
  • CIA
  • Dr. Robert Bowie
  • [name not declassified]
  • JCS
  • Lt. Gen. William Y. Smith
  • Agriculture
  • Robert Bergland
  • Harry Wilhelm
  • OMB
  • Bowman Cutter
  • Randy Jayne
  • NSC
  • Thomas Thornton
  • Guy Erb

SUMMARY OF CONCLUSIONS

On October 11, 1977, the PRC met to consider US foreign assistance. Three reports had been submitted to the PRC: (1) the Foreign Assistance Study of the Development Coordination Committee (DCC); (2) An Assessment of Development Assistance Strategies, an Interim Report by the Brookings Institution; (3) PRM–8-Track III, US Relations with Developing Countries: The Next Twelve Months.

The PRC considered the principal options for foreign assistance strategies, taking into account the relationship between foreign assistance and other elements of US foreign economic policy, such as trade [Page 855] policy and the transfer of technology. There was a consensus that an intermediate approach to Basic Human Needs (as defined in PRM 8-Track III, pp. 17a–17b) would be an essential element of any US foreign assistance strategy.

The PRC requested an interagency working group, chaired by the NSC, to prepare a paper for the President on the main strategic options for foreign assistance by October 31. The paper should pay particular attention to the implications of each option and to the relationship of the options to possible funding levels for foreign assistance.

Following the completion of the paper on options for assistance strategies, the working group should address in more detail the organizational issues which arise in the DCC study and the Brookings Institution report. The PRC decided that the second report of the working group and its recommendations should be submitted to the President by December 1, 1977.

  1. Source: Carter Library, Staff Office Files, Domestic Policy Staff, Eizenstat Files, Box 238, NSC (National Security Council) (C/F, O/A 724). Confidential. The meeting took place in the White House Situation Room. Brzezinski initialed at the end of the summary.↩