Office of the Historian

110. Memorandum From the Chairman of the Policy Planning Council (Bosworth) to Acting Secretary of State Dam1

Washington, April 29, 1983

SUBJECT

  • Your May 2 Meeting on Strategy for UNCTAD VI2

Since Paul Boeker and I will be in Brazil, neither of us can make your meeting but I wanted to give you my views.

The basic difference I think you will find at your meeting is in judgments of the tactical situation at UNCTAD.

Allen Wallis (or his staff) view UNCTAD as somewhat threatening and want to confront the LDC group there with the need to revise their demands and reform UNCTAD in the hope that this pressure will split the moderates and the radicals, leading to more pragmatism at least from the former.

Others (including me) view UNCTAD as more of a North-South dialogue than a serious negotiation. Presenting a constructive posture and discussing all the LDC issues are seen as important therapy. The dividend of so avoiding confrontation at UNCTAD comes in LDC pragmatism in other forums (the World Bank, GATT, IMF, etc.) where the absence of deadlock in the general dialogue increases the freedom of action of pragmatic, moderate LDCs.

This needs to be discussed a little so that you can understand Allen’s views, which seem to have moderated somewhat. The actual tactical situation is likely to be more like the others’ view, so I would encourage this approach.

On substance the one issue worth discussing is a new round of trade negotiations with a special role for liberalization of North-South trade. Trade is the most important and constructive part of our position. Our continuing to expand on the modest North-South trade initiative we tried at the GATT Ministerial could lead to two years of constructive diplomacy and preparatory meetings with a Congressional Mandate not needed before 1985.3 Bill Brock needs support and encouragement on this issue. I think everyone at your meeting should agree on this.

Stephen W. Bosworth4
  1. Source: Department of State, Executive Secretariat, S/S–I Records, The Executive Secretariat’s Special Caption Documents, Lot 92D630: Not for the System, April 15–30, 1983. Confidential. Not for the system.↩
  2. A record of the meeting was not found.↩
  3. See footnote 2, Document 99.↩
  4. Bosworth signed “Steve” above his typed signature.↩