Mr. KERREY. Mr. President, earlier last month, Vice President Quayle went to South Dakota in an attempt to draw distinctions between Republicans and Democrats on the subject of agriculture. On at least one issue--that of grain embargoes--it appears that the Vice President covered about as much ground as a young colt on the end of a longe line.
I can understand the Bush campaign's reluctance to give the Vice President free rein on such matters, so I thought that perhaps a more complete examination of the record was in order.
There have been four major agricultural embargoes over the past 20 years. Three were imposed by Republican administrations, and one by a Democratic administration.
On June 27, 1973, President Nixon embargoed the export of soybeans and cottonseed, and the meal, cake, and oils made from those commodities.
On October 4, 1974, President Ford imposed sales moratoria suspending both corn and wheat sales to the Soviet Union. Three days later, USDA announced a prior-approval system that ultimately restricted the export of corn, wheat, soybeans, grain sorghum, barley, oats, and related products.
The Ford administration imposed a similar sales moratorium again in 1975. On August 11 of that year, the Secretary of Agriculture called on the major grain companies to withhold further sales to the Soviet Union. On September 9, President Ford extended this moratorium through mid-October. The next day, the suspension was broadened to include Poland as well.
On January 4, 1980, President Carter announced an embargo against the Soviet Union, restricting United States sales of corn, wheat, soybeans, meat, dairy products, and related exports to that country. The partial embargo affected those quantities of grain in excess of the maximum guaranteed purchase levels specified by the bilateral United States-Soviet agreement in effect at that time.
According to a November 1986, publication by the U.S. Department of Agriculture entitled `Embargoes, Surplus Disposal, and U.S. Agriculture,' `Unlike the trade interruptions of the mid-1970's, imposed to ensure adequacy of domestic supplies and to calm dramatic price movements, the 1980 embargo had little domestic basis.' Indeed, the Carter embargo was imposed one week after the Soviet's invasion of Afghanistan. President Carter cited the threat to national security as the basis for the embargo. In my judgment, this reason didn't make that embargo correct, but it did make that action distinct, in a fundamental way, from the three Republican embargoes that preceded it.
For example, President Nixon embargoed oilseeds in 1973 because of tightening supplies and escalating prices for high-protein meal products. Similarly, President Ford's moratoria on grain sales in both 1974 and 1975 were driven by the administration's concern about short grain supplies and high commodity prices.
In other words, Mr. President, the three Republican grain embargoes had a common thread: They were all motivated by a desire to thwart market forces and artificially restrain the prices received by farmers. I guess the lesson here is that Republicans really believe their platform rhetoric on agriculture and the free market--to a point. And that point seems to be when farm prices get a little too high.
Finally, I might say, Mr. President, that it's understandable that the Vice President would spend so much time talking about the 1980 embargo, to the exclusion of previous embargoes. Such a narrow discussion gives him political advantage. It's also a subject on which he presumably is well-versed, since the acknowledged architect of that embargo, former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brezinski, has served as adviser to the Bush-Quayle campaign.
