DEPARTMENT OF STATE Memorandum of Conversation
DATE: September 16, 1952
SUBJECT: Courtesy Call of Deputy Prime Minister Havenga
PARTICIPANTS: Deputy Prime Minister of N. C. Havenga, South Africa Ambassador Jooste, South Africa The Secretary Mr. H. Raynor, Director, BHA
COPIES TO: S EUR E BNA FE Embassy Pretoria
Deputy Prime Minister Havenga paid a courtesy call on me this afternoon accompanied by Ambassador Jooste.
I opened the conversation by saying that John Snyder told me of his conversations with Mr. Havenga in Mexico City and had also told me of his record of 21 budgets with a surplus. He corrected me by saying he now had 22 budgets with a surplus and he thought this record should entitle him to some rest from public service in his later years. I replied from what I had heard I thought this was probably doubtful and that probably I would get such a vacation before he would.
Price of Gold
Mr. Havenga said that with respect to the question of the price of gold he understood why it was not possible to do anything now and that he understood our position. He said he was encouraged, however, by the trend and that he thought eventually his view would be adopted. He referred to the great importance of increasing gold throughout the world as reserves for various currencies. He said in recent years international trade had increased by some 250% and reserves by only 36%.
- 2 -
GATT
In the coursed of this discussion he said that he regretted that it had been necessary for South Africa to discriminate to some extent against the United States in order to attempt to assist the sterling area and particularly the United Kingdom. He spoke of the close commercial relations between South Africa and the United Kingdom, the importance of the South African exports of wine and fruit to the United Kingdom, the importance of the capital inflow from the United Kingdom to the South African gold fields and the precarious size of the British reserves which made it of extreme importance to find means by which gold could be made available to the United Kingdom.
I said that we understood the problem, were sympathetic to it but felt that we couldn't waive on the matter of principles although as he knew we had not pressed or forced the issue. He said he understood our position and appreciated it.
Korea
I told Mr. Havenga that as we had promised we anticipate to be in a position shortly to equip the South African Squadron in Korea with jets at the same time we equip our own squadron. The Minister expressed appreciation for this statement and said that this had been a troublesome political issue in view of the losses which had been suffered by the South African squadron.
He asked when the Korean question would be settled. I replied that this was difficult, that we were naturally giving it a great deal of thought and had proposals which we felt were reasonable or would be reasonable to reasonable people but that, of course, we were not dealing with reasonable people. I said that perhaps there might be some development in view of the conclusion of the Sino-Soviet talks in Moscow. I said all we knew about these talks was contained in the communiqué and I doubted if we will learn much more. I said it seemed significant to me that the communiqué was silent on the matter of economic assistance to China by the Soviets. I said that if they had been able to get some I would have thought the Soviets would have bragged about it in the communiqué. As the communiqué is silent perhaps they were not successful and perhaps this may have some significance.
- 3 -
Soviet Congress
The Minister inquired as to the significance of this forthcoming meeting. I said we also had very little information on this but were not inclined to place any great significance on it. I said the meeting which theoretically is held periodically each five years had not been held for thirteen years. I said while there might be some changes in names and shuffling about that we were not anticipating any personnel or other changes of a fundamental nature.
When Mr. Havenga took his leave I told him I was looking forward to talking with him more at dinner tonight.