Editorial Note

Concerning the preparation for the Torquay negotiations, a principal function of the Department was to send on to the President the recommendations of the Interdepartmental Committee on Trade Agreements (TAC), the highest-level policy-formulating source in the Executive Branch with respect to United States policy regarding the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). In this connection, the Department of State submitted to the President during the course of the year some dozen or so “critical” recommendations, ranging in date from March to October. In a sense, these all came into focus in the memoranda of September 26, which are printed below together with certain documentation of subsequent date that arose out of a question left unsettled by the September 26 proposals.