INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS GROUP WEEKLY SUMMARY NO. 29

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP79-01090A000100020023-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 6
• Document Creation Date: December 12, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 13, 2000
• Sequence Number: 23
• Publication Date: July 19, 1949
• Content Type: PERRPT

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DOCUMENT CLASS qvpww~
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Tnt~RNATIONAI ORGA
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EVIEWER: DDS . s'E1 LY SUV! MARY NO. 29
For week ending 19 July 1949
volume II
The International Week
Economic problems deriving ntc frbm the
&
er~had.o~rrthedinternational
and the US recession continued
picture. Syria and Israel finally agreed on an armistice as
the Palestine Conciliation Commission reconvened at Lausanne.
Although heading for an ultimate SC veto, the French arms, census
proposal received 8-3 (USSR, Ukraine, Egypt) approval from a
subcommittee of the UN Commission on Conventional Armaments.
Substantial progress was made by the CFM deputies now drafting
an Austrian Treaty. Meanwhile, on the' international labor front,
the USSR appealed directly to the rank and file of Western work-
era to affiliate with the new industrial departments of the WFTU.
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USSR o ens drive to bring feftwin Western labor into WFT(J.
aren a or to encourage the en ranee o e tw ng '"es -
a
I
pp
n an
ern workers into the industry-wide ',"MW "trade departments" now
the USSR has broadcast an appeal to "workers
ized
,
being organ
whose organizations have left the Federation," urging them to form
" zommittees of cooperation and liaison with the 1F TJ." The USSR
suggests that they press their national labor organizations to
permit, affiliation of component industrial unions with the world
federation and reiterates that the sJIFTU is still ready to "coop-
erate" with the veteran craft internationals. Simultaneously,
the Soviet press emphasizes that two seats on the new WNIFTU Execu-
tive Committee have been left vacant for the US and the UK. These
moves indicate that the Sovietized :IFTU leadership intends to
accelerate its drive to assimilate leftwing unions in the ;'lest but
that it will attempt, wherever possible, to accomplish this without
forcing the leftwing unions to leave their national organizations.
rrrgnT to demand UN inauirs into colonial labor conditions.
-
..111 ,L Gr7 ~JV 314dV vv vv -_ .~_._r ----v s
-
that the UN Economic and Social Council undertake an extensive in-
quiry into labor conditions in colonial areas. At the WFTU Milan
Congress, the Soviet delegate urged that the Council hear com-
plaints from colonial trade unions and send out commissions to
"study" conditions in India, Iran, South Africa, Brazil, Chile and
Venezuela. This proposal suggests that the USSR would like another
foram in which to air its attacks upon "imperialist repression" in
dependent areas and that, by so doing, it hopes to offset the
effect of approaching UN inquiries into forced labor and human
rights violations inside the Soviet orbit. The selection of six
countries where labor organization has proceeded only under close
governmental tutelage is apparently calculated to embarrass 'Western
UN delegations defending the concept of "free trade unionism".
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Point Four counter-attack. The USSR is evidently prepar-
ing a wo-prongs a as on t e US Point Four program of techni-
cal assistance to underdeveloped countries. First, Soviet pro-
paganda media are plugging the line that Point Four is intended
to wrest control of colonial possessions from the "Marshall"
countries and to extract super-profits for US monopolists. The
second aspect of the Soviet attack is as yet less clearly devel-
oped, but there are already indications of competing Soviet or
Satellite technical assistance offers to Asiatic countries.
Czechoslovakia has reportedly made commitments to give aid to
certain industries in Pakistan and to have offered similar aid
to Ceylon. Furthermore, Embassy Karachi estimates that a Soviet
trade mission may also offer Pakistan technical assistance.
These Soviet moves, however meager their substantive results may
be, indicate that the USSR recognizes the great long-range po-
tentialities of Point Four in combatting the spread of Communism
in the underdeveloped areas of the world.
w -
Agzr
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4OWT
far/ iO cT
Austrians to withdraw front ~i?TU The Socialist-led Aus-
trian r ?Un oni Fe eratxoxieportJiy plans to quit the ''tFTU
before November,, The Austrian Federation*s president stated
that he would have preferred to withdraw at the and of the occup a-
tion but that international labor developments forced Austria to
take a stand meanwhile. This pledge leaves the Finnish and
Israeli organizations as the only important non-Communist national
labor groups still inside the WFTt5
Addin = insult..... In its latest slap at the UN, the Un$.on.
''vf` Sou ~" rxcm has nQtfied the UN Seex?etar.4-General that it will
submit 'no further reports on South West Africa. This development,
a logical step in the Union's policy of absorbing its former Learrue.
of Nation6 mandate, will serve only to intensity the bitter attacks
on South Africa which will occur during the current session of the
UN Trusteeship Council,, Soviet protagonists could hardly ask for
a juicier morsel of anti-colonial propaganda.
UN?SCCB to invite Soviet and Polish artic ation., The UN
Bal.kanC,otrar? _ttee plans tc re x i4ite Lie 1 and Po1a,nd to fill
their Committee seas, This an a"-though motivated i.-y recent
indications of Soviet interest .n the Greek problem,, is unlikelyC?B
tQ meet with success since the S^R has repeatedly dent
as i ea`:snc would t if it des red to participate in a Greek
set,tlemant probe 1y pre?. rto b, _pass the Committee completely,
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LIKELY EFFECTS OF THE DOLLAR SHORTAGE
The continuing European dollar shortage, likely to be
further accentuated should the US recession lead to additional
cuts both in the ERP and European dollar export possibilities,
may well force significant changes in European recovery programs.
The ERP countries are now well aware that their dollar export
targets for 1952 and thus their prospects for eliminating their
extraordinary dollar deficit are grossly over-optimistic. Con-
sequently, they are being forced to shift still further toward
even greater reductions of dollar imports, while seeking to fill
ever more of their needs from non-dollar sources despite higher
costs, In short 9 they must seek to balance their dollar trade
at lower levels then hitherto aimed at. An example of this trend
is the revised Swedish long term program, which, recognizing the
declining dollar market for Sweden's key pulp exports, calls for
a shift to greater trade with the ERP countries at the expense of
dollar imports and exports.
Acceleration of such policies will encourage still greater
'Jestern European efforts to expand East-West trade and, since the
Soviet bloc will-want many items on the 1-A and 1-B lists, this
will increase the pressure against Western export controls. An-
other significant effect may be to strengthen the existing tend-
ency toward making the ERP area, as well as the sterling bloc,
more of a closed discriminatory trading area, probably under UK
leadership, within which trade could be expanded while being in-
sulated from low-cost dollar competition. Although such a trend
toward self-sufficiency might contribute toward the ERP objective
of reducing the abnormal European dollar deficits it would run
counter to the US policy of seeking freer world trade and to the
undertakings which the ?arshall Plan countries have made to this
end. It would tend to perpetuate uneconomic high cost production
to the extent that it removed the threat of US competition. How-
evero the British, for example, point out that freer multilateral
trade and convertible currencies, while desirable for anormal
economic situation and for countries which, like the US, have
adequate foreign exchange reserves and are efficient low cost pro-
dueerss is hardly possible at present for nations which must cone-
serve inadequate dollar rriouroes and prepare against the day when
US underwriting of their deficits will and.
In the financial field, there is likely to be further strong
pressure for devaluation of several European currencies, a measure
probably inevitable in the long run in order to restore eompeti-
tivu European export pricer. Since any general devaluation hinges
upon British willingness to devalue sterling, the UK will be in-
creasingly prodded by the continent and by its customers. France
and some other countries are probably only waiting for the UK to
act. To cushion any such devaluation, the Marshall Plan countries
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may well revive their 1947 Proposal that the US create a huge
stabilization what the International Monetary Fund ~res resources are
a grand scale
totally inadequate to do.
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