Mickey

U.S. exporters felt like a party guest who had been given a Mickey Finn and kicked down the stairs.

At the invitation of the Department of Commerce, some 400 exporters gathered in Washington last week to learn about the Government's export controls imposed on Jan. 2. For 1 1/4 hours, they sat in Commerce's walnut-paneled auditorium listening to an explanation of the new rules by Francis E. Mclntyre,.deputy director of the Office of International Trade. Just before the party ended, the exporters got a press release. It tersely announced that the program which they had been discussing was being reinforced by a drastic new program, effective March 1. From that date on, said the release, every shipment to Europe, Russia and a dozen other areas (about 50% of U.S. exports) would require a license. Though it was the most drastic reimposition of Government controls since war's end, there were no more details for the surprised exporters.

Apart from its bad timing, the new setup made some sense. Its purpose was to 1) prevent the Marshall Plan nations from spending U.S. dollars on nonessential or luxury items; 2) keep tabs on everything going to the Soviet Union or its satellites. But the export wall was full of loopholes. It would still be possible, as in war years, to ship to a Latin American middleman, who could transship to one of the affected countries.

Exporters, as expected, were dead set against the controls. They claimed that 1) most European nations already had strict controls to prevent their dollars from being squandered, 2) the red tape would slow up European recovery by delaying the shipment of needed goods. But the Administration hinted that it may soon put still other nations under export license.

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