Mr. BENNETT. Then, the committee is of the opinion by that vote that the measure should be defeated, and the staff is instructed to prepare a report. Try to keep it as brief as you can, so we can have it before us tomorrow, when the full committee meets.

Without objection, we stand adjourned.

Thank you.

[Thereupon the committee adjourned at 12:36 p.m.]

The following information was received for the record:]

WRITTEN STATEMENT OF HON. HARRY F. BYRD., JR., SENATOR FROM VIRGINIA

THE RHODESIAN CHROME ISSUE

The Committee on Armed Services has before it H.R. 1287, a bill to repeal the so-called Byrd Amendment, enacted by the Congress in 1971.

The legislation which H.R. 1287 would repeal prevents the President of the United States from placing an embargo on the importation of a strategic material from a free world country so long as that same material is being imported from a Communist-dominated country.

The principal effect of the Byrd Amendment has been to permit the importation into the United States of chrome from Rhodesia.

The President, at any moment, can nullify the Byrd Amendment in either of two ways:

1. Eliminate the importation of chrome from Russia, or

2. Remove chrome from the strategic list.

Such action has never been taken nor-so far as is known-contemplated. The background is this: on December 16, 1956, the United Nations Security Council voted an embargo on all trade with Rhodesia. The then President of the United States, Lyndon B. Johnson, issued an Executive Order, No. 11322, dated January 5, 1967.

Under this Executive Order, issued unilaterally by the President without consultation with Congress, all trade between the United States and Rhodesia was embargoed.

In 1971 the Senate and the House both approved the Byrd Amendment. This legislation in effect exempted Rhodesian chrome from the across-the-board sanctions on trade with Rhodesia.

In 1972 an effort was made in the Senate to repeal the Byrd Amendment. It was defeated.

The following year, the Senate approved legislation overturning the Byrd Amendment, but the issue was not taken up by the full House of Representatives during the 93rd Congress.

New bills were introduced to repeal the Byrd Amendment after the convening of the current Congress. H.R. 1287, one such bill, is now before this Committee.

The debate over Rhodesian chrome involves serious questions of legality, constitutionality, defense readiness and economics.

Turning first to the legal questions, let us consider the contention of the critics of the Byrd Amendment that it is illegal and unconstitutional.

During consideration of S. 1868 of the last Congress, the most recent bill aimed at repeal of the Byrd Amendment, Representative Charles Diggs of Michigan, argued that:

"As long as the Byrd Amendment stands the United States is breaking international law and violating its solemn treaty obligations. I, therefore, urged my colleagues to support S. 1868 which will be coming up for a vote in the next few weeks, a bill to repeal the Byrd Amendment and restore the United States to the position of a law-abiding member of the international community."

Nothing could be more misleading or inaccurate. It is not the Byrd Amendment which is unconstitutional.

Under the articles 39 and 41 of the Charter of the United Nations, an embargo can only be imposed against a country, that is judged to be a threat to world peace.

No one could seriously argue that Rhodesia is a threat to world peace. In fact, Secretary of State Kissinger has himself testified that he does not regard Rhodesia as a threat to world peace.

The United Nations' embargo against Rhodesia, has, then, no legal basis whatsoever. Indeed as the late Secretary of State Dean Acheson observed, the

U.N. action against Rhodesia is "barefaced aggression, unprovoked, and unjustified by a single legal or moral principle."

Furthermore, so far as the United States is concerned, when President Johnson decided that the United States would support the U.N.-imposed embargo, he did so unilaterally. There was no consultation with Congress.

Lest anyone forget the history of events which resulted in the U.N. embargo of Rhodesia, let me briefly highlight them. The U.N. imposed its sanctions on Rhodesia after that nation declared its independence from Great Britain. The action was justified by labeling Rhodesia a "threat to international peace and security." This charge was as ridiculous in 1966, when the first U.N. sanction was imposed, as it is today.

It is, therefore, the U.N. which has acted both illegally and unethically in terms of its own Charter.

The Byrd Amendment does not redress this injustice. For it remains today a criminal offense for any American to engage in trade with Rhodesia, except in the few critical materials covered by the Byrd Amendment. This is particularly ironic in view of the fact that the embargo has already been blatantly disregarded by nations around the world, including such allies as Japan and West Germany and such adversaries as Russia.

The Byrd Amendment, wholly within the traditions of international law and compatible with the legal and moral conduct of nations, merely provides that the United States will not be dependent for strategic materials on the one country-Russia-which poses a potential threat to the security of the United States. Now, Mr. President, on the question of the constitutionality of the Byrd Amendment, critics of the amendment have argued that the provisions of the U.N. Charter irrevocably bind the United States to compliance with the United Nations' embargo of Rhodesia. The distinguished Senator from Minnesota (Mr. Humphrey), for example, has argued :

The fact of the matter is that the United Nations Charter, as adopted by the Congress of the United States and ratified by the Senate, has the same standing as a provision of our Constitution. It is a supreme law of the land.

The distinguished Senator from Minnesota offers a unique proposition in that statement. It has been tested in our courts, and the courts have rejected that extremist position.

On June 19, 1972, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, and in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, on October 31, 1972, the proposition that the United States has somehow surrendered its sovereignty to the United Nations was soundly rejected. Upon appeal, on April 16, 1973, the lower court decisions were let stand by the Supreme Court.

In its dismissal of the suit which sought to declare the Byrd Amendment illegal the district court wrote:

Congress has the Constitutional authority to abrogate in whole or in part, the treaty obligations of the United States . . . This was a political, economic, and foreign policy determination. It is not for this Court to strike down . . . The voters of our country are the only ones in this case who may judge the actions of their representatives.

In upholding the district court's decision the U.S. court of appeals wrote: It is settled constitutional doctrine that Congress may nullify, in whole or in part, a treaty commitment.

We think that there can be no blinking the purpose and effect of the Byrd Amendment. It was to detach this country from the U.N. Boycott of Southern Rhodesia.

Under our constitutional scheme, Congress can denounce treaties if it sees fit to do so, and there is nothing the other branches of government can do about it. We consider that this is precisely what Congress has done in this case; and therefore the District Court was correct to the extent that it found the complaint to state no tenable claim in law.

On April 16, 1973, the Supreme Court denied certiorari, in effect upholding the previous court decisions.

Thus, Mr. President, even if we were to only consider the legal and moral principles involved in this matter, the Byrd Amendment would stand on its own merit.

But there is more to this problem than legal and ethical questions; there are also strategic and economic implications.

56-945-75--10

Throughout the debates on Rhodesian chrome, one of the questions most extensively debated has been the importance of Rhodesian chrome to essential American industry.

The most important single fact to bear in mind in this controversy is that Rhodesia has two-thirds of the world's reserves of metallurgical chrome ore. The distribution of reserves, in rounded-out percentages is as follows: Rhodesia. 67: South Africa, 22; U.S.S.R. and other Communist countries, 6; Turkey, 2; and rest of the world, 3.

Metallurgical grade chrome ore is the ore which is used in production of stainless steel. It is the need for stainless steel, vital for defense and essential industries, which makes chrome a strategic commodity.

Therefore in reimposing the embargo on Rhodesian chrome, we would be taking a most serious step: Cutting off the United States from two-thirds of the world's known metallurgical chrome ore reserves.

Advocates of reinstituting the Rhodesian chrome sanction maintain that Rhodesia is not a major source of chrome for the United States because only about 11 percent of our imports of metallurgical grade chromite-ore-come from that country. This is a misleading statement, because much of the chrome coming into the United States today comes not as ore but as a processed alloy called ferrochrome.

Rhodesia has become a major exporter of ferrochrome. Like other developing nations with rich mineral resources, Rhodesia is anxious to earn additional foreign exchange by processing its raw materials on its own shores, thus enhancing the value of its exports.

This trend is reflected in the U.S. import figures. Between 1970 and 1974, American imports of chromite were cut by almost two-thirds-from 703,000 tons to 249,000 tons-while imports of ferrochrome almost quadrupled-from 26,000 tons to 102.000 tons.

If we look at ferrochrome imports, we find that the share coming to the United States from Rhodesia is 24 percent.

Moreover, Rhodesia's share is bound to increase if sanctions are not reimposed The reason for this is that industrial nations which have historically imported ore and processed it for export to others as ferrochrome are getting out of this business-partly because the source countries are doing their own processing. and partly because the domestic demands of the industrial countries are rising rapidly.

From all of this it is clear that Rhodesia's importance to the United States as a supplier of chrome is significant and increasing.

Advocates of reimposing the Rhodesian embargo claim that assured supplies are available from other nations. Let us look at the alternate sources of supply. South Africa, like Rhodesia, is increasing ferrochrome exports and decreasing exports of ore. Its grade of ore is lower than that of Rhodesia, and in fact it makes use of Rhodesian ore for processing. And from a foreign policy standpoint. it is doubtful that the racial policies of the South African Government are more acceptable than those of Rhodesia.

Russia has the next largest supply of chrome, after South Africa.

Surely no one will assert that Russia is a reliable source or a friendly country. As to reliability, we need only to recall that the Soviets doubled the price of chrome exports when the United States was observing the Rhodesian chrome embargo. And in 1973, for a 5-month period, the Soviet Union embargoed its own chrome exports in an effort to drive up the price.

More fundamentaly: What kind of logic can support increasing the dependence of the United States upon Russia for a commodity vital to national defense? The great bulk of our defense budget-over $90 billion this year- is imposed upon the taxpayers of the United States because of the policies of the Soviet Union.

Furthermore, if one wishes to couch the argument in moral terms, it would certainly be absurd to cut off the flow of chrome from Rhodesia because of Rhodesia's racial policies while at the same time increasing and encouraging trade with Russia, which may very well have the most repressive government in the world.

Russian justice? Russian freedom? Ask Solzhenitsyn. Ask Sakharov. Ask the Soviet Jews. Ask anyone who dares to speak out against the all-powerful regime in the Kremlin.

After Russia, in the list of chrome sources, we come to Turkey.

Turkey has smaller reserves than Russia, and far smaller than Rhodesia or South Africa, and much of its output is tied up in long-term contracts for delivery to Japan.

Finland, Brazil, and Pakistan have reserves far too small to replace the amounts imported from Rhodesia.

So it is clear that if we are to be able to produce sufficient stainless steel for American defense and industry, we must have access to the reserves of Rhodesia.

Some have contended that we must cut off all trade contracts with Rhodesia for fear of offending her black African neighbors. It has been contended that if the Byrd Amendment stands, the nations of black Africa will deny us their mineral resources.

I think this is a gross underestimation of the intelligence of the black African leaders. I do not believe that they will cut their own countries off from the world's richest market because of their dislike of Premier Ian Smith.

This view of mine is shared by an expert observer, Mr. Bruce Otis, Washington correspondent of African Report magazine.

During an interview on WETA radio in Washington, on September 9, 1974, Mr. Otis was asked about the possibility of a boycott of the United States by the black African nations.

This was his reply:

You raised the spectre of some kind of boycott, perhaps by Africa or the third world of the United States, in terms of minerals exports, over some Southern African issue such as the current Rhodesian thing. It is theoretically possible, but the U.S. will have to really be quite Neanderthal to drive it to that extreme. Most African governments are quite pragmatic in terms of their own exports.

Quite, pragmatic, indeed. Of course they are. They are developing countries. They need foreign exchange. They need foreign sales. They are not going to commit economic suicide.

Moreover, the black African leaders should realize that the sale of chrome to the United States provides only a tiny fraction of Rhodesia's income from foreign trade. Most of Rhodesia's income is derived from a burgeoning trade with sanction-busting nations all over the world, including Great Britain-the instigator of the U.N. boycott-Japan, and West Germany.

One final point needs to be made with regard to sources of chrome for the United States, and that is that the American stockpile cannot be both a strategic reserve and a substitute for Rhodesian ore and ferrochrome.

If the stockpile is used to implement a dubious foreign policy, obviously it will not be there when a real emergency arises.

In addition, there can be no further releases from the stockpile without the assent of the Congress-and neither Senator Howard Cannon of Nevada nor Representative Charles E. Bennett of Florida, chairmen of the subcommittees which pass on stockpile releases, has indicated approval of the chrome release or scheduled hearings on the subject.

I feel sure that the opposition to releases from the stockpile will be even stronger if the United States cuts itself off from Rhodesian chrome. And well it should be for combining a Rhodesian boycott with a stockpile release would be like trying to have one's cake and eat it too-and burning down the bakery.

The common sense of this should be obvious: if you consume most of an emergency reserve, it is not an emergency reserve any more.

No combination of non-Rhodesian foreign sources and stockpile releases is going to give the United States a secure source of chrome. We must have access to the Rhodesian source-and that means we must keep the Byrd Amendment on the books.

Re: H.R. 1237.

Hon. MELVIN PRICE,

SOUTHERN FURNITURE MANUFACTURERS ASSOCIATION,

High Point, N.C., June 18, 1975.

Chairman, House Armed Services Committee, House of Representatives, Rayburn Building, Washington, D.C.

DEAR MR. CHAIRMAN: The Southern Furniture Manufacturers Association opposes enactment of H.R. 1237 which would re-establish an embargo on the importation of Rhodesian chrome by the United States.

Reimposition of the Rhodesian embargo would have serious effects upon the specialty steel industry, resulting in substantial increases in the cost of stainless steel.

Rhodesia is the principal source of supply of chrome and ferrochrome. To prevent the United States companies from dealing with a nation because of its governmental policies is an unsound policy. It would force the United States to deal with Russia and a few other nations for this critical material which is essential to our national security.

We would appreciate your having this letter entered in the hearing record.

Cordially,

Hon. CHARLES E. BENNETT,

P. DOUGLAS KERR, Executive Vice President.

UNION CARBIDE CORP., Washington, D.C., July 21, 1975.

Chairman, Subcommittee on Strategic and Critical Materials, Committee on Armed Services, U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, D.C. DEAR MR. CHAIRMAN: Union Carbide opposes the enactment of H.R. 1287 because it would deny the United States access to a strategic raw material and, in the process, impose a threat to our nation's security and economy.

The attached statement is submitted in the hope of providing information, perspectives and insights that the Committee and the Congress will find help. ful in their consideration of H.R. 1287.

Sincerely,

Enclosure.

GEORGE K. GRAEBER.

RHODESIAN CHROME AND THE NATIONAL INTEREST

(Statement submitted by Union Carbide Corp.)

This statement is being submitted by Union Carbide Corporation in the hope of providing information, perspectives and insights that the Committee and the Congress will find helpful in their consideration of H.R. 1287.

H.R. 1287 would repeal a provision of law enacted in 1971 known as the Byrd Amendment which prohibits the banning of imports of critical and strategic materials from any non-communist country as long as no similar prohibitions exist regarding the importation of the same material from communist countries. In practical effect, the Byrd Amendment voided the prohibition against U.S. importation of critical and strategic materials from Rhodesia imposed as a result of the voting of economic sanctions against that country by the United Nations Security Council in November, 1967.

Although the Byrd Amendment applies to the importation of all critical and strategic materials--and critical and strategic materials other than chrome (e.g. nickel and asbestos) have been imported under the Act--the principal thrust behind its enactment was and remains metallurgical chrome, an irreplaceable component of stainless and other specialty steels of vital importance to the nation's security and economic well-being.

As one of the nation's leading suppliers of ferrochrome alloys to the steel industry. Union Carbide has an important stake in matters affecting the availability and cost of metallurgical chrome, as H.R. 1287 would—and in a most adverse and detrimental manner.

Union Carbide opposes H.R. 1287 as being counter to the national security and national interest of the United States. Nor would its enactment further the cause of effecting a peaceful, lasting solution to the Rhodesian problem. In fact, the reverse could well be the case. A divisive public debate on the Rhodesian chrome issue could have an adverse effect on attempts currently underway by Rhodesians, black and white, and their African neighbors to resolve their long-standing problems on their own and without outside intervention.

CHROMIUM, CHROME ORE, CHROMITE

Chromium is a metallurgical element that occurs naturally in the form of an ore called chromite. There are several general types or grades of chromite which