Office of the Historian

43. Memorandum From Henry Nau of the National Security Council Staff to the Assistant to the President and Deputy to the White House Chief of Staff (Darman)1

Washington, September 10, 1981

SUBJECT

  • Cancun Preparation

Attached are papers NSC has developed relevant to Cancun.2 They include a paper on policy, tactics and an options paper on GNs.3 I have also attached a memo I did for Allen indicating the items we need to decide on now.4

State has been fussing with these papers for two weeks (and called off a meeting of principals scheduled originally for September 8, saying they were not prepared). They now have a paper to be discussed in Rashish’s office this afternoon which essentially rearranges the NSC materials with one major difference.5 State favors a minimalist [Page 137] approach. The President adopts a listening brief, reserves his decision on GNs, and emphasizes U.S. commitments to international cooperation. The NSC materials outline a more aggressive approach. The President makes a hardhitting speech departing from the NIEO agenda and developing new themes for the dialogue (such as indicated in the NSC policy paper), backs up these themes by pointing to a redirection of U.S. aid policies to support private trade, investment and financial activities, and indicates that GNs are at the moment unhelpful and should remain suspended until the specialized agencies, invigorated by U.S. policies (which do not cost more money but like our approach to World Bank energy policy work toward redirection of current activities), develop a more specific agenda. Obviously, if this approach succeeds, GNs becomes superfluous.

I feel we have to push the bureaucracy on this one. So far the options have been considered only at low levels. Yet the next six weeks is an opportunity for the President not only to influence the international dialogue but also to put his own imprint on the State/Treasury/AID bureaucracy that formulates LDC policy.

  1. Source: Reagan Library, Douglas McMinn Files, Economic Summit Files, Mexico—General. Unclassified.↩
  2. Not attached.↩
  3. The paper on policy is printed as Tab A to Document 35. The paper on tactics is printed as Document 39.↩
  4. See Document 42.↩
  5. A copy of the paper for discussion at the September 10 meeting in Rashish’s office is in the Reagan Library, Executive Secretariat, NSC Trip File, Cancun Filing; NLR–755–3–8–6–6.↩