tions in Indochina complicate the flexibility of the President as compared to a number of years ago.

On the other hand, it has generally been held that the President has inherent powers to protect American lives and American property when they are threatened. And I believe that the President-and I know that the President-is operating on this assumption today.

Of course, before any steps are taken, we would discuss them with the leaders of the Congress.

Mr. LINSCOTT. Will the forthcoming talks in Brussels bring about new dimensions of the U.S. Common Market relationships? Do you anticipate changes in the troops commitments?

Secretary KISSINGER. After recent events, the United States cannot afford a withdrawal of troops from Europe without creating a totally wrong impression about our determination and about our willingness to play an international role. And therefore, this is an issue that we will not raise we do not expect to raise in Brussels.

The purpose of the talks between the President and his colleagues will be to reaffirm the dedication of the Western democracies to common goals.

It is not enough to do this simply with verbal declarations. It is important that we are joined together in some great common enterprises.

We are already doing it in the field of energy. I have indicated today in the economic parts of my speech some of the other areas where joint efforts are possible. What united the Western countries in the '50s and '60s was not simply declarations, but joint efforts. We believe that such joint efforts can again be created. And therefore, we believe that the Western Alliance can emerge from the present period, more vital than before.

Mr. LINSCOTT. Are we going to revise our policy of containment and limited war in view of its minimal success in Viet-Nam?

Secretary KISSINGER. Well, we do have a policy of limited war.

Our policy is to attempt to preserve the peace.

I think we must learn from the experience of Viet-Nam that if the United States-that the United States should think through all the implications of its commitments before it makes them.

But also, if it makes them, that it cannot do so half-heartedly.

We believe that we cannot commit the world to be at the mercy of other Communist superpowers.

Now what precise conclusions we will draw from that, in any individual instance. I cannot now say—but as a basic principle of our foreign policy, we cannot be indifferent to changes in the world balance of power, and we are determined to resist them. [Applause.]

Mr. LINSCOTT. One last question : Mr. Secretary, would you serve as Secretary of State under a Democratic President, if one were elected in 1976? [Laughter.] Secretary KISSINGER. I don't think that I will be-I would-[Laughter.]

I have the conviction from some of the statements of the various hard-working candidates that this is a decision that I would not have to make. [Laughter.]

But I also have the conviction that they will not be in a position to make a concession. [Laughter. Applause.]

APPENDIX 7

CONFERENCE OF DEVELOPING COUNTRIES ON RAW MATERIALS, DAKAR, FEBRUARY 3-8, 1975

THE DAKAR DECLARATION

The developing countries, meeting in Dakar on 4-8 February on the initiative of the Fourth Summit Conference of NonAligned Countries, carried out a detailed analysis of the fundamental problems of raw materials and development in the light of recent trends in international economic relations, and taking into account the decisions of the Sixth Special Session of the United Nations General Assembly on raw materials and development.

They noted the trends in the international economic situation, which was marked by the perpetuation of inequalities in economic relations, imperialist domination, neo-colonialist exploitation and a total lack of solutions to the basic problems of the developing countries.

Determined to pursue together and in unity a joint action to broaden the irreversible process which has been initiated in international economic relations and which has opened the way for the developing countries to put an end to their position of dependence vis-à-vis imperialism;

Convinced that the only way for them to achieve full and complete economic emancipation is to recover and control their natural resources and wealth and the means of economic development in order to secure the economic, social and cultural progress of their peoples;

Decide, in accordance with the principles and objectives of the Declarations and Programmes of Action of the Fourth Summit Conference of Non-Aligned Countries and the Sixth Special Session of the United Nations General Assembly, on the basis of a common course of action, to adopt the following declaration:

1. The present structure of international trade, which had its origins in imperialist and colonialist exploitation, and which

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has continued in force up to the present day, in most cases through various forms of neo-colonialism, needs to be replaced by a new international economic oruer based on principles of justice and equity, designed to safeguard the common interests of all peoples, to correct present injustices and to prevent the occurrence of further injustices. The profound crisis now affecting the international economic system has once again demonstrated the breakdown of traditional mechanisms, and with it the particular vulnerability of the economies of developing countries. It cannot be denied that the structure and organization of world import and export trade operate for the most part to the advantage of developed countries. A powerful weapon which the developing countries can use to change this state of affairs is to defend their natural resources and to grasp the fact (as they are in fact doing) that it is only by combining their forces to strengthen their negotiating power that they will ever succeed in obtaining their rights to just and equitable treatment, something for which our peoples have lived and fought for centuries. Despite innumerable efforts at international level to tackle the problems which confront developing countries which export primary products, no perceptible progress has in fact been made for several decades in solving any aspect of the primary products problem.

2. According to the views imposed by the industrialized capitalist countries concerning world trade in primary products, the free working of the primary products markets should normally ensure an optimum distribution of the world resources, and the rising trend of demand in the industrialised countries for exports of primary products from developing countries should stimulate the economic growth of this latter group of countries. This would have been the case if favourable conditions had been created, especially with regard to free access to the markets of the developed countries and the marketing of primary products, but the developing countries have, in the performance of this function of suppliers of raw materials to the industrialized countries, run into other obstacles imposed on them.

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3. The framework and organization of commodity trade, and especially the marketing and distribution systems for individual commodities prevailing at present, were developed in the nineteenth century by colonial powers and are wholly inadequate today as instruments of economic change and advancement. Under such systems, transnational corporations control the production of and trade in many primary commodities, particularly through the exercise of bargaining power against a large number of weak competing sellers in developing countries. World commodity markets experience a chronic instability which arises through sudden and substantial shifts in the balance of world supply and demand as well as through excessive speculative activities encouraged by the lack of adequate regulation of these markets.

4. The fact that developing countries have been denied adequate participation in the determination of the international prices of their export commodities has led to a permanent transfer of real resources from developing to developed countries, because the benefits from the improvements in productivity in the production of primary commodities and raw materials are transferred to developed consumer countries rather than translated into higher earnings for commodity producers, in marked contrast with what occurs in developed countries where improvements in productivity result in higher profits for those countries. Furthermore the low level of commodity prices has stimulated an excessive consumption and considerable waste of scarce raw materials in the affluent countries, resulting in the rapid depletion of non-renewable resources.

5. The repeated MFN tariff reductions in the post-war period which resulted from trade negotiations in GATT covered mostly industrial products traded mainly between developed countries. Moreover efforts towards the liberalization of international trade tended to ignore non-tariff barriers, which more particularly affect raw or semi-processed primary commodities of export interest to developing countries, and also left

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unresolved the problem of tariff escalation, which greatly hampers the trade of developing countries.

6. In addition, developed countries or groupings of developed countries spent on the subsidization of their domestic production of primary commodities competing with those exported by developing countries a much larger amount than that allocated to official development assistance to developing countries. Moreover, they have violated the principles adopted in the framework of the GATT and have failed to meet their obligations under the International Development Strategy with regard to the readjustments of their respective economies. As a result, their self-sufficiency ratios for most of these commodities increased substantially, and in some cases surpluses became available for dumping on third countries' markets, thus reducing the export outlets available to producer developing countries. 7. At the same time considerable research and development efforts were undertaken, in particular by transnational corporations - partly financed out of the excess profits they had made by controlling the exploitation and marketing of the natural resources of the developing countries and led to the large-scale production of synthetics and substitutes which displaced in well-protected markets the natural products exported by developing countries.

8. The fast growth of developed countries was partly financed through an international monetary system tailored to their needs, allowing inflationary trends to affect not only their domestic economies but also international trade. Developing countries, being the weakest partners in this trade, were those who suffered most from inflation. Moreover, speculative monetary activities by transnational corporations contributed significantly to the destabilization of the international monetary system. The monetary instability and devaluation of the early 1970s affected adversely the currency reserves held by developing countries.