4; | Seppe i he Moo ob) Was? ened wae P.SECRET y LPO ESE Wv Secretary Williams pointed out, in answer to this argument, that the United States had already made concessions to the British with respect to the decontrol of various items. Secretary Dulles re- plied that while we should constantly keep in mind how we could hurt the Soviet bloc most, we must not forget or overlook how we may in the process hurt ourselves and our alitances. Secretary Williams reverted to his list of points, noting thirdly that the proposed reduction of items for control would surely increase the Soviet bloc's capability for economic penetration of the Free World. Becretary Williams' fourth point was a plea that if the urgency of the situation doesn't actually compel an answer to the United Kingdom right now, could we not postpone a decision on fur- ther reduction of the levels of control until the approach of the , Sumit Meeting or at least of a pre-Summit meeting. If we decontrolled too many items now, we would have nothing to bargain with the Soviet Union at these meetings. Secretary Dulles answered this latter point by indicating that the State Department had given consideration to a delay, but had concluded that the matter could not be handled in this fashion. If postponed much longer, the thing would blow up. The Soviet Union knows very well the attitude and position of most of our allies on the issue of trade controls. Moreover, continued Secretary Dulles, he did not believe in the wisdom of negotiating with the Russians on any basis that we do something injurious to ourselves in order possibly to gain some concessions from the Soviet Union--concessions which might well prove illusory. Secretary Dulles said that it was his guess that we would probably end up in a position somewhere about half-way between the control list desired by the British and the list desired by the United States. While the lists were not susceptible of a mathematical division, we would probably end up roughly mid-way. The President said he was deeply impressed with the variety of considerations which entered into the development of lists for multilateral trade controls. On the other hand, if the Soviets a . ” . # ry = . iY * : Een ereFEE . General Cutler then called on Secretary McElroy, who stated that he thought that Secretary Dulles' exposition of the problem had been very persuasive. The most that he would like to add at this time was that the approach. of the Department of Defense to these lists of items would be more conservative than the approach of the Department of State. However, when you added it all up, Secretary McElroy said he did not believe that it would be too difficult to reach a common point of view. Accordingly, the Defense Department did not want to take a violent position on the issue. ~6- TSFASSIEEE