Foreign Relations of the United States, 1981–1988, Volume XXXVIII, International Economic Development; International Debt; Foreign Assistance

311. Memorandum From Secretary of State Shultz to President Reagan¹

Washington, January 30, 1984

SUBJECT

• The Carlucci Commission Report on Security and Economic Assistance

You are tentatively scheduled to meet briefly on February 21 with Frank Carlucci’s Commission on Security and Economic Assistance, which includes 26 members of Congress, as well as leaders from industry, labor, and private interest groups.²

The Commission was formed a year ago at my request.³ Its purposes were to review comprehensively our foreign assistance programs, to make recommendations on how we could better use our scarce resources, and to find ways to generate greater congressional and public support for these critical tools of our foreign policy. The Commission submitted its report to me last November.

The Commission’s report has been thoroughly reviewed and analyzed within the State Department, AID, and other concerned agencies.⁴ Steps are already being taken to implement a number of the recommendations, including greater use of the private sector and free market forces as vehicles for social and economic development. Also, our FY 1985 foreign assistance budget request includes proposals to increase the level of concessionality in military assistance, and to begin a major new program initiative in Africa that is designed to encourage and reward countries that are making the right moves toward structural economic reform.⁵

You should be aware, however, that I do not intend to implement two of the Commission’s most controversial recommendations: a major reorganization that would create a new foreign assistance coordinating agency; and establishment of an executive-legislative Consultative Group. Although we will not be implementing these recommendations, we will be strengthening existing coordination and consultative mechanisms in ways that will be responsive to the legitimate concerns of the Commission.

A third recommendation, proposing a White House conference on foreign assistance, would better serve the Administration’s interests after the fall elections and I am therefore deferring further consideration until that time.

Your meeting with the Commission members, to which the Congressional leadership has been invited, provides a valuable opportunity to strengthen bipartisan support for foreign assistance, a real need that the Commission’s report has properly underscored.

1. Source: Reagan Library, Executive Secretariat, NSC Subject File, Security and Economic Assistance, Commission on (Carlucci Commission) (January 1984); NLR–753–96–2–2–2. Secret.
2. For the text of Shultz’s remarks presenting the Commission’s report to Reagan on February 21 and the text of Reagan’s remarks in response, see Public Papers: Reagan, 1984, Book I, pp. 241–243.
3. See footnote 2, Document 308.
4. The Commission on Security and Economic Assistance: A Report to the Secretary of State (Washington, D.C., 1983).
5. Documentation on U.S. policy toward economic reform in Africa is scheduled for publication in Foreign Relations, 1981–1988, vol. XXVII, Sub-Saharan Africa.