537 



(c) provisions for the reciprocal establishment of business facili- 

 ties to promote trade ; 



(d) an agreement establishing an arbitration mechanism for settling 

 commercial dudoates. 8 



The Joint Commercial Commission has no precise parallels in earlier 

 periods of temporary improvement in U.S.-Soviet relations, although 

 it does parallel recent Soviet arrangements with the Japanese and 

 West Europeans. The Commission consists on each side of one princi- 

 pal, three deputies, and staff. The U.S. Secretary of Commerce and 

 the Soviet Minister of Foreign Trade, Mr. Peter G. Peterson and Mr. 

 Nikolai Patolichev, respectively, were the first principals. 9 The U.S. 

 staff for the new commission was supplied by a component of the new 

 East- West Trade Bureau of the Department of Commerce. 



On March 6, 1973 an East- West trade policy committee was created 

 with George Shultz as chairman, and Frederick B. Dent, Secretary of 

 Commerce, as vice chairman. Other members are Secretary of State 

 Rogers, presidential assistants Henry A. Kissinger and Peter M. Flani- 

 gan, and Ambassador William D. Eberle, Special Representative for 

 Trade Negotiations. James E. Smith, Deputy Under Secretary of 

 Treasury is the executive secretary of the Committee. 10 



Even though the problems and issues of U.S.-Soviet trade were not 

 resolved at the May 1972 Summit meeting, there appeared to be a seri- 

 ous disposition on the part of Soviet authorities to press for their early 

 resolution. New York Times reporter Theodore Shabad reported a 

 discussion with Mikhail Misnik, deputy chairman of the Soviet State 

 Planning Commission, in which Mr. Misnik said : 



It's about time we moved beyond the Stone age practice of, say, bartering a 

 sheep for half a camel ... if we advance beyond that stage into large-scale 

 arrangements in which the United States would provide plant and equipment and 

 we would pay with raw materials and the end products of such plants, then the 

 possibilities are indeed immense. 



. . . Once we feel that there is serious interest in a joint venture, the problem 

 of access can be overcome. 11 



The issues were formally joined again during the summer. In a 

 report released by Secretary Peterson on his return from the first 

 meeting of the U.S.-U.S.S.R. Commercial Commission, he suggested 

 that the United States was also willing to compromise — even in the 

 area of high technology transfers formerly restricted by association 

 with national security. 



With the industrial and technological development of other major economies, 

 the U.S. no longer has the monopoly it once enjoyed in the production of certain 

 goods. Our overall trade balance is a melancholy reminder of these changed cir- 

 cumstances. The increased availability of high technology products elsewhere 

 rendered some of our original curbs on exports to the Soviet Union increasingly 

 anachronistic. The real loser from these particular restraints would have in- 

 creasingly been the U.S. producer and worker, not the Soviet consumer or the 

 Soviet economy. There comes a point at which we must face the fact that business 



8 "Communique Regarding Joint U.S.-U.S.S.R. Commercial Commission, May 26, 1972," 

 Denartment of State Bulletin (June 26, 1972), p. 898. 



8 On March 6, 1973, George Shultz, Secretary of the Treasury, was designated to succeed 

 Mr. Peterson. 



w Washington Post, Mar. 7, 1973. 



11 New York Times, May 30, 1972, p. 19. 



