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5.
The situation was further exacerbated by the fact that
di Martino (who returned to Brussels after the first two days)
misunderstood Kemmis support of the U.S. proposal to mean
that the U.K. had gone back on their intention to table the
substance of their own March submission. There was a rumour,
which later turned out to be partly true, that the U.S. was
lobbying in capitals to try to persuade other prospective
donors not to table individual "illustrative" offers in
UNCTAD. The EEC believed that this was being done behind
their backs and that the U.K. had, once again in accordance
with the myth, succumbed to U.S. pressure. As a result a
message got through to Brussels and Tran telephoned Goldsmith
in London to complain that the U.K. had gone back on their
previous intention as a result of Kemmis' interventions at the
Paris meeting. Goldsmith firmly refuted this allegation
in fact up to then there had been no American démarche in
London, although one was reported later in the week in Brussels.
But the seeds of distrust had been sown and it took much of
the rest of the week to dig them up.
Beneficiary Countries
6.
On the third day, after I had arrived, the Group was
going through the draft of Part II of the Report. When the
section on Beneficiary Countries (page 23) was reached the
atmosphere became very tense. The EEC, the Americans and the
Japanese all indicated that they could not necessarily continue
to accept the wording of the Special Group of Four on the self-
election principle - "any country, territory or region claiming
to be less developed"- and that they might have to make
exceptions. After consultations with me Kemmis then made a
strong statement reaffirming the U.K.'s adherence to the self-
election principle and to the fact that prior exclusion should
not be based on "competitive considerations". He then
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