ABSTRACT
Our survey of business leaders as well as our community studies showed that men tend to make and maintain contact with those who agree with them. This tendency also characterized the staffs of the pressure groups. The administration had recognized the rising resistance to the Randall Commission proposals and had therefore agreed to a temporary, one-year extension of the Reciprocal Trade Act. The Committee for a National Trade Policy, however, made the opposite decision. One of the key decisions involved in writing the speech was to put the emphasis on lower American tariffs as a countermeasure to the Soviet trade offensive. Rationally or irrationally, the staff of the CNTP saw in this unexpected event the chance to strike at least one blow for liberalized trade. In 1962, the liberal-trade high command successfully approached the textile industry and unsuccessfully approached the chemical industry.
