Office of the Historian

334. Memorandum From the President’s Deputy Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Bator) to President Johnson1

Washington, November 3, 1966, 3:10 p.m.

SUBJECT

  • New England Speech Commitments on Textile Imports

You will be under pressure if you go to New England to promise to explore further controls on textile imports. As you know, the industry wants to extend the present controls on cotton goods to wool and synthetic products. In terms of economic policy—foreign and domestic—it is [Page 807] important to resist these pressures. There is no justification for further protection of textiles:

  • —the industry is making money hand over fist;
  • —unemployment of textile workers is down to about 3.2%;
  • —imports have risen because demand has been running ahead of domestic capacity. (Without imports we would have faced a run-away price situation in textiles.)

I am aware of the importance of November 8.2 However, as the history of the Kennedy “commitment” on textiles makes clear, the industry would use any Presidential statement as a stick to beat you with the next 6–1/2 years. The truth is that no international agreement covering wool and man made is negotiable; and unilateral U.S. controls would result in drastic retaliation. Further, any indication of Presidential willingness to yield to protectionist pressure would weaken our negotiating hand in Geneva during the next few critical months.

I attach Bill Roth’s excellent run-down on the textile situation (Tab A)3 and Jim Duesenberry’s comments (Tab B).4 You need not take time to read these. I attach them on the outside chance that you may want to find out a little more about the current picture. In any case, Ackley, Roth, Charlie Schultze, Tony Solomon, and Joe Califano fully agree that we should try to avoid any indication that you are prepared to consider more controls.

Welcome home.5

FMB
  1. Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, Name File, Bator Memos, Box 1–2. No classification marking. In an attached note to President Johnson, November 4, Bator wrote that he would “try to avoid bothering” the President “with minor nuisance problems during the next few weeks.” (The President had announced late on November 3 that he was going to Texas for a few weeks to rest up for upcoming surgery.) Bator added, however, that because he thought “there is chance that the textile people will try to get you to say something in Texas about import controls,” he was sending him the attached summary, which he had prepared before the President’s announcement of his Texas trip and operation, “of the arguments for turning them down.”↩
  2. The date of the mid-term Congressional elections.↩
  3. A 6-page memorandum from Roth to Bator, October 27, not printed. (Johnson Library, National Security File, Name File, Bator Memos, Box 1–2)↩
  4. Not found. Dr. Duesenberry was a member of the Council of Economic Advisers.↩
  5. President Johnson returned from a 17-day Asian-Pacific trip on the morning of November 3.↩