460.509/12–2453: Telegram
The Chargé in the United Kingdom (Butterworth) to the Department of State1
secret
London, December 24, 1953—1
p.m.
2760. Excon.
- 1.
- Informal discussions with British officials to date reveal UK still engaged in internal wrangling on issue short list versus longer detailed list. UK officials estimate clear UK position for resumed bilaterals will not be ready until latter part of January. In any event Embassy feels British position at best would be an application of principles stated by Maudling in conversation with Governor Stassen2 and, while working down from long list rather than [Page 1069] insisting on completely new start, would still call for a significant degree of reduction in control area. Embassy does not expect that extreme position on short list will prevail in internal UK discussions, but proposal submitted to ministers for approval will probably reflect UK desire to make controls more rational, permitting some expansion of trade and making politically acceptable the introduction of transaction controls.
- 2.
- Above leads Embassy to believe that US must prepare itself to make a real move toward narrowing of control lists if multilateral agreement is to be achieved and international program is to operate effectively. In order to do this, a review of list with idea of eliminating merely obvious dead wood and retaining essentially all items now listed would be inadequate. We feel genuine attempt must be made to determine those areas of control where past controls have been least effective in preventing Soviet build-up and where downgrading or delisting of items would represent least injury to Western security. US concurrence in downgrading or decontrol of such items would have advantage in obtaining renewed vigor in application and enforcement remaining controls if UK and other PC’s satisfied that remaining controls were useful and rational.
- 3.
- Since part of UK internal exercise is review of lists and since it is in our interest to buttress to greatest possible extent those UK elements resisting extreme short list idea, Embassy suggests it be authorized to give to UK officials new US attributes and standards and to explain how they are being used in US review. While there is some possibility that injection of attributes and standards at this time might result in UK desire to debate validity thereof, we feel that more likely result would be that UK might be inclined use same criteria in their review with added advantage that UK would have some idea of direction in which US now heading. Subsequent discussions could then be conducted on basis common starting point.
Butterworth