Council for American-Soviet Trade

The Council for American–Soviet Trade was a proposal conceived and authored by the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM)’s international economic affairs department (IEA) to regularize commercial development between US corporation leaders and Soviet industrial and state-controlled trade organizations. It became the forerunning blueprint for the eventual US-USSR Trade and Economic Council which was formally established in October 1973.

The Council for American–Soviet Trade (CAST) was initially proposed in February 1973 following the highly successful US-Soviet Trade Conference organized by the NAM in Washington at the Shoreham Hotel. With over 800 delegates and a high-level Soviet delegation led by Vice Minister of Foreign Trade V.S. Alkhimov, this conference was the largest gathering of its kind. CAST was designed in response to an official protocol which emerged from President Nixon’s summit with Soviet premier Leonid Breznev during the Soviet leader’s visit to Washington in June 1973. NAM’s East-West Task Force had hosted a luncheon for Soviet Foreign Trade Minister N.S. Patolichev at the Washington International Club on June 22 during the Summit which reinforced the prominent role of NAM in the development of a permanent organizational mechanism. Soviet leadership had been impressed by NAM’s follow-up including a June 1 meeting in New York City between Nicholas E. Hollis, NAM’-IEA’s vice president and members of the East–West Task Force and Soviet deputy foreign trade minister V. Smeljakov where the CAST proposal was initially presented in writing with diagrams and proposed functions, including dual secretariat offices in Moscow and New York. NAM president E.D. Kenna testified on challenges of US-Soviet trade reform, including export credit extension and repeal of the Jackson–Vanik amendment before the Joint Economic Committee of the Congress on July 17 and underscored the CAST proposal as one approach to dealing with state controlled economies (Journal of Commerce, July 19, 1973). NAM’s cautionary, qualified endorsement for exploring trade openings with the USSR contrasted with Chase Manhattan Bank’s David Rockefeller, who pressed for wider export credit support and broader trade liberalization with the Soviets.

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