Correspondence Between President Harry S. Truman and Nelson Rockefeller with Related Material

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20-U FILED BY MR. HOPKINS NOV 27 1950 November 24, 1950 Dear Mr. Rockefeller: At the time I requested you to serve ag Chairman of the Advisory Board on International Development, I expressed the # conviction that any adequate and sound program of international economic development must be both broadly conceived in relation to our national interests and so formulated as to lend itself to realistic and continuing cooperation between private enter- prise and government, here and abroad. I regard such a program as vital to the attainment of our goal of an expanding world economy and to the building of the security of the free world. On March 31, 1950, I requested Mr. Gordon Gray to undertake a comprehensive study of the foreign economic policies and pro- x2668 cedures of this Government in the light of present developments x426-n and conditions. Mr. Gray has now submitted his report. A reading of it reinforces my conviction that an effective program for international economic development must be integrated both as to policy and operations with all other governmental and private activities relating to the international trade and economic life of the nation. Our policy in relation to the underdeveloped areas is one of the central points toward which the Gray Report is addressed. When that Report was made public, I stated that I was asking you to have the Advisory Board "as its first task, consider Mr. Gray's proposals concerning our policy toward the underdeveloped areas in the context of the full report, in order that this Board will be able to give us its views early in the coming year on the types and size of programs which it considers desirable for the United States to undertake in this field." In accordance with this request, I should like to have the Advisory Board address itself specifically to the consideration of desirable plans to accomplish with maximum dispatch and effec- tiveness the broad objectives and policies of the Point Four x192-A program. In carrying out this task you should take into account x275-A