with the United States, because the principal alternative to trading with the United States is trading with the Soviet Union.

The second is the particular reason in relation to this so-called Common Market in Europe.

Senator FREAR. And I interpret that to mean that the countries with whom we deal have lessened their confidence in the United States in their operations.

Secretary DULLES. They do not have confidence in the trade policies of the United States unless the basis for that confidence is created by the Congress.

Senator FREAR. Yes, and I am glad to hear you say that.

Secretary DULLES. If the Congress creates lack of confidence, there is no way we can restore it.

Senator FREAR. Of course I recognize the fact that the administrative branch carriers out the policies and principles and thinking of the legislative branch in this, but then I can say the same thing regarding the legislative branch. Do you think it would impair our position with the countries abroad if we extended this for a shorter period of time than 5 years?

Secretary DULLES. Yes, sir.

Senator FREAR. You do?

Secretary DULLES. No doubt about it.

Senator FREAR. Suppose the Congress expressed a different opinion. Would you be willing to abide by their decision?

Secretary DULLES. Certainly.

Senator FREAR. And how serious a handicap do you think it would be?

Secretary DULLES. I think it would be serious. I cannot read the future, but I would certainly say it would be serious.

Senator FREAR. You said in your prepared statement, and I quote: I believe that most people in this country look upon the program as continuing and permanent and it would in my mind be unthinkable to discontinue it.

Are you saying, Mr. Secretary, that it is your proposal and that of the administration that this should be made permanent?

Secretary DULLES. No, sir. We propose that it be renewed for 5

years.

Senator FREAR. Yes, sir, but that does not just quite gibe with your statement.

Secretary DULLES. One is a statement of my own views and my opinion.

Senator FREAR. Yes, I recognize that.

Secretary DULLES. At the end of 5 years it will be renewed again. Senator FREAR. Then you and the President may not agree on this?

Secretary DULLES. I think we do agree.

Senator FREAR. Is it his opinion then? Does he believe the same as you do according to that statement?

Secretary DULLES. The President believes, I think as strongly as I do and perhaps more strongly than I do that the policies represented by this act are sound and should be a permanent part of our foreigntrade structure.

Senator FREAR. Then as far as this committee is concerned, you could have said it is the belief of the administration instead of making it personal?

Secretary DULLES. I think so, yes, sir.

Senator FREAR. Do you have any serious objections to the removal of section 6?

Secretary DULLES. That was not in the bill which the administration originally sought.

Senator FREAR. That is right.

If it is removed would you have serious objection?

Secretary DULLES. We have indicated now that it is acceptable to us, and I think that it would probably not be in the interests of the legislation to remove it.

Senator FREAR. I am just trying to get the degree of seriousness from you, Mr. Secretary, that is all.

I mean how formidable is this, expressing it in degrees of seriousness? Is it serious or not?

Secretary DULLES. Is what serious?

Senator FREAR. The removal of the section. How serious would you consider it to be if section 6 were removed?

Secretary DULLES. I would not want to express an opinion about that because that requires a judgment about the legislative position in the House which I do not feel I am competent to render.

Senator FREAR. I know, but we need your judgment here, sir. I do not want to press you too far, but I am doing my best to.

Secretary DULLES. I am delighted to give my judgment about matters that I know about, but I am not an expert judge about the legislative climate here in the Congress.

I have to work on other matters than that, and to ask me for an expert opinion as to what I think the impact would be upon the House of taking out a provision which they have overwhelmingly adopted and which the administration agreed to, that I have no expert opinion about.

Senator FREAR. Do you want to just make a simple "Yes" or "No" statement as to whether you have any serious objection to the removal of section 6?

Secretary DULLES. I would not want to make a "Yes" or "No" answer to that because that deals with a field as to which I do not feel competent or qualified to speak for the administration.

I said on coming here that I came here primarily to speak about the foreign policy aspects of this legislation.

You are going to have the Secretary of Commerce here this afternoon I guess and others who are more familiar than I am with the domestic aspects of it.

Senator FREAR. That is true, Mr. Secretary, but you know these people have a lot of respect for what you say.

Secretary DULLES. I think if they have respect for me it is because I try to take care of my own knitting and I do not get into things I do not know about.

Senator FREAR. That is a wonderful policy, and I admire you for that.

However, then do you want to venture to say that this section 6 is a good proposal?

Secretary DULLES. I do not want to speak to that at all, Senator. You can get other people who are far more qualified than I am to speak to that.

Senator FREAR. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. That is all, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Secretary, I was very much interested in the responses you made to Senator Kerr and Senator Williams as to the area of importations you would regard as dangerous to national defense.

Secretary DULLES. Where is that?

Senator KERR. Under section 7, I believe, of the act of 1955. The CHAIRMAN. An amendment relative to this subject was inserted by the Senate Finance Committee I think 3 years ago. Secretary DULLES. Three years ago the section read:

has reason to believe that any article is being imported into the United States in such quantities as to threaten to impair the national security. The CHAIRMAN. What I wanted to get from you is, what articles would be included in that definition?

In other words, what importations would threaten the national security?

Secretary DULLES. I think you are going to have other people more qualified than I am to testify on that particular point.

There are a number of commodities, petroleum and petroleum products is certainly one, the other essential metals, lead, zinc, and the like, are those that come immediately to my mind.

There are undoubtedly quite a mass of others, but the ODM would be able to advise you about that much better than I could.

My advice would only be casual as things come to my attention. The CHAIRMAN. The amendment was adopted 3 years ago. Has there been any investigation as to importations that would impair national security?

Secretary DULLES. Yes, several.

The CHAIRMAN. Could you give a list of them, and explain why no action has been taken. Has any action been taken under this section except on a voluntary basis?

Secretary DULLES. Action has been taken on what you might call a semivoluntary basis with respect to petroleum, for example.

The CHAIRMAN. There has been no mandatory enforcement of reduction in these importations; has there?

Secretary DULLES. You are speaking now about petroleum?

The CHAIRMAN. I am speaking of anything under that section.

I would like to know whether we have taken any action to reduce these imports?

Secretary DULLES. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. What were they?

Secretary DULLES. Petroleum.

The CHAIRMAN. That was voluntary; was it not?

Secretary DULLES. The quotas were accepted voluntarily by the companies.

The CHAIRMAN. Were those quotas carried out?

Secretary DULLES. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. There has been complaint made to me that they were not carried out.

Secretary DULLES. The quotas were designed to reduce the imports to a given percentage of out total production, and actually the imports as I understand it are even less than what was sought by those regulations.

The CHAIRMAN. I think the committee would like to have, Mr. Secretary, the articles that in the judgment of the Director of the Defense Mobilization come in the area of those things imported which would impair national security.

It is not only oil, is it?

Secretary DULLES. No, no.

The CHAIRMAN. There must be a good many other things.

Secretary DULLES. Many other things. I am sure the Director of the Office of Defense Mobilization would be glad to furnish information on that subject.

The CHAIRMAN. But offhand you can think of only three, oil, lead, and zinc; is that it?

Secretary DULLES. No; there are a number of others.

For example, here I just happen to have a few things which illustrate the scope of this thing.

Petroleum, fluorspar, watches, dental burrs, photograph shutters, stencil silk, wooden boats, fine mesh wire cloth, thermometers, wool felt; those are all things on which there had either been hearings or projected hearings and in some cases the application has been withdrawn, cordage, wool fabrics, jeweled watches.

Senator LONG. Cordage was withdrawn, was it not, Mr. Secretary, if I may just interrupt?

Quite a few of those which you are listing were not decided

Secretary DULLES. That is right, they were withdrawn. All I am saying is I give that list to indicate the potential scope of this, the very broad scope of this section.

Senator WILLIAMS. As I understood the answer to my question the scope is almost unlimited as to this?

Secretary DULLES. That is correct. Whenever there is any article, the excessive importation of which is deemed to affect detrimentally the national security, then this section can be invoked.

Senator WILLIAMS. It is my understanding that it is not necessarily confined to articles extracted from the soil but it could be any article manufactured or otherwise.

Secretary DULLES. That is correct. I perhaps carelessly used the word "extracted" because we were thinking about petroleum products, but actually, it is anything.

Senator WILLIAMS. That was my understanding of it.

The CHAIRMAN. Who makes that decision as to whether national security would be impaired?

Secretary DULLES. The President on the advice of the Director of

the Office of Defense Mobilization.

The CHAIRMAN. I assume you will furnish the committee a list of those articles that in the judgment of the Office of Defense Mobilization could be classified as the imports which would affect national security.

Secretary DULLES. I think, Senator, that would be an extremely

things which do affect the national security that you would have to make a list almost as long as

The CHAIRMAN. Take textiles. Would the importation of textiles affect the national security?

Secretary DULLES. I can conceive of certain chances where it might.

I do not think it does at the present time. That is one of the reasons why it is not easy to submit a list, because in the last analysis almost everything contributes to some extent to the national security.

You have got to have uniforms for your soldiers, and I suppose that if imports

Senator KERR. Parachutes.

Secretary DULLES. Were of such a character that you would not possess within your own country the capacity to make uniforms for your soldiers, then you would put it on the list. This is not anything which is static.

The CHAIRMAN. What about chemicals?

Secretary DULLES. There again you can have a situation I am quite sure where the importations might theoretically destroy our capacity to have certain essential chemicals. If so, then they would go on the list.

Senator KERR. If we should get to the point where we had a great population beyond that which we could feed ourselves and get an importation of food that then climbed beyond the requirements to the point where it might impair the ability of our domestic producers to do the utmost that they could for it, it might even go that far; could it not?

Secretary DULLES. Yes; I think those are rather theoretical conditions given the fact that our present problem is how to get rid of our surplus food, but as you point out, theoretically you could develop I suppose, a dependency upon foreign food imports which would be dangerous, but that is highly theoretical at the present time. We have still got Senator Byrd's apples to live off of.

The CHAIRMAN. I wish we could export some of these apples. We would like all of the information, Mr. Secretary, you can give us as to what areas this would cover or could cover. I think this is quite important in the consideration of this bill.

Secretary DULLES. I think the peril point works pretty well.

The CHAIRMAN. It works pretty well in some cases, but the President has not approved the recommendations of the Tariff Commission. Secretary Dulles. I think perhaps you refer to the escape clause but not the peril point.

The CHAIRMAN. Either one.

Would you furnish a list to the committee of all the actions taken under the escape clause and the peril point?

(The material referred to was subsequently submitted for the record as follows:)

TERMINATION OF TRADE AGREEMENTS

The bilateral trade agreements are all subject to termination on 6 months' notice by either party. A country party to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade may, under definitive application of the agreement, withdraw on 6 months' notice. However, the agreement is currently being applied by the United States on a provisional basis and the United States could, accordingly, withdraw on 60 days' notice.