ABSTRACT

The growing mood in the White House for the liberalisation of American trading links with the East faced continuing resistance from the Department of Defense, mounted by its senior officials rather than its Secretary, Melvin Laird. Attempts by Maurice Stans, Secretary of the Department of Commerce, in the winter of 1971 to 1972 to reduce the list of items banned from free export by the US (the Commodity Control List) was challenged by Defense officials. The items to be decontrolled were of little security interest and were either being manufactured in the Eastern countries or exported there by the CoCom members. The list contained 963 items of which 489 were CoCom controlled and Commerce wanted to shed the remaining 474 items, despite the list already having been pruned of 1,700 other items following an interagency review. Commerce sought to group the 474 items into blocks or "baskets' following assessment by Department technicians. However, this annoyed the Defense officials, who believed that new strategic items would be incorrectly classified and appear in the wrong basket and then, along with other previously listed items, slip through the basket definitions and be exp0l1ed to the East. Such unapproved exports, said the Defense officers, would contribute significantly to "the development, production, or use of military hardware or to the military-supporting industrial capability of the USSR or Eastern Europe'. The other recommendation of the Commerce Dep311ment to eliminate the China differential disturbed Defense, particularly in the light of the continuing Chinese military aid flowing to Vietnam. Defense officials insisted that removing the differential "flies in the face of the plain fact that, because differences exist in levels of industrial and technological development between the USSR and the PRe, a significantly greater number of items must be rated as strategic in the case of the PRe. The Defense officials opposed the Commerce Department's proposals so strongly that they recommended the document be rescinded.!