The President looked across at the man from the Department of Agriculture.
“Dr. Fletcher, how does this break down in layman’s terms?”
“Well, sir, Mr. President, for a start, one has to deduct, at the very minimum, ten percent of the gross harvest to produce a figure of usable grain. Some would say we should deduct twenty percent. This modest ten-percent figure is to account for moisture content, foreign matter like stones and grit, dust and earth, losses in transportation, and wastage through inadequate storage facilities, which we know they suffer from badly.
“Starting from there, one then has to deduct the tonnages the Soviets have to keep on the land itself, right in the countryside, before any state procurements can be made to feed the industrial masses. You will find my table for this on the second page of my separate report.”
President Matthews flicked over the sheets before him and examined the table. It read:
1. Seed Grain. The tonnage the Soviets must put by for replanting next year, both for winter wheat and spring-sown wheat ... 10 million tons
2. Human Consumption. The tonnage that must be set aside to feed the masses who inhabit the rural areas, the state and collective farms, and all suburban units—from hamlets, through villages, up to towns of less than 5,000 population ... 28 million tons
3. Animal Feed. The tonnage that must be set aside for the feeding of the livestock through the winter months until the spring thaw ... 52 million tons
4. Irreducible Total ... 90 million tons 5. Representing a gross total, prior to a 10 percent unavoidable wastage deduction, of ... 100 million tons
“I would point out, Mr. President,” went on Fletcher, “that these are not generous figures. They are the absolute minima required before they start feeding the cities. If they cut down on the human rations, the peasants will simply consume the livestock, with or without permission. If they cut back on animal feed, the livestock slaughter will be wholesale; they’ll have a meat glut in the winter, then a meat famine for three to four years.”
“Okay, Dr. Fletcher, I’ll buy that. Now what about their reserves?”
“We estimate they have a national reserve of thirty million tons. It is unheard of to use up the whole of it, but if they did, that would give them an extra thirty million tons. And they should have twenty million tons left over from this year’s crop available for the cities—a grand total for their cities of fifty million.”
The President swung back to Benson.
“Bob, what do they have to have by way of state procurements to feed the urban millions?”
“Mr. President, 1977 was their worst year for a long time, the year they perpetrated ‘the Sting’ on us. They had a total crop of one hundred ninety-four million tons. They bought sixty-eight million tons from their own farms. They still needed to buy twenty million from us by subterfuge. Even in 1975, their worst year for a decade and a half, they needed seventy million tons for the cities. And that led to savage shortages. With a greater population now than then, the state must buy no less than eighty-five million tons.”
“Then,” concluded the President, “by your figures, even if they use the total of their national reserve, they are going to need thirty to thirty-five million tons of foreign grain?”
“Right, Mr. President,” cut in Poklewski. “Maybe even more. And we and the Canadians are the only people who are going to have it. Dr. Fletcher?”
The man from the Department of Agriculture nodded. “It appears North America is going to have a bumper crop this year. Maybe fifty million tons over domestic requirements for both us and Canada considered together.”
Minutes later, Dr. Fletcher was escorted out. The debate resumed. Poklewski pressed his point.
“Mr. President, this time we have to act. We have to require a quid pro quo from them this time around.”
“Linkage?” asked the President suspiciously. “I know your thoughts on that, Stan. Last time it didn’t work; it made things worse. I will not have another repeat of the Jackson Amendment.”
All three men recalled the fate of that piece of legislation with little joy. At the end of 1974 Congress had passed a compromise trade-reform bill; its passage had been delayed by a controversial section that specified in effect that unless the Soviets went easier on the question of Russian-Jewish emigration to Israel, there would be no U.S. trade credits for the purchase of technology and industrial goods. The Politburo under Brezhnev had contemptuously rejected the pressure, launched a series of predominantly anti-Jewish show trials, and bought their requirements, with trade credits, from Britain, Germany, and Japan.
“The point about a nice little spot of blackmail,” Sir Nigel Irvine, who was in Washington in 1975, had remarked to Bob Benson, “is that you must be sure the victim simply cannot do without something that you have, and cannot acquire it anywhere else.”
Poklewski had learned of this remark from Benson and repeated it to President Matthews, avoiding the word blackmail.
“Mr. President, this time around they cannot get their wheat elsewhere. Our wheat surplus is no longer a trading matter. It is a strategic weapon. It is worth ten squadrons of nuclear bombers. There is no way we would sell nuclear technology to Moscow for money. I urge you to invoke the Shannon Act.”
In the wake of the Sting of 1977, Congress had, finally and belatedly, in 1980 passed the Shannon Act. This said simply that, in any year, the federal government had the right to exercise an option to buy the entire U.S. grain surplus at the going rate per ton at the time of the announcement that it wished to do so.
The grain speculators had hated it, but the farmers had gone along. The act smoothed out some of the wilder fluctuations in world grain prices. In years of glut, the farmers got prices for their grain that were too low; in years of shortage, the prices were exceptionally high. The Shannon Act ensured that if the government exercised its option the farmers would get a fair price but the speculators would be out of business. The act also gave the administration a gigantic new weapon in dealing with customer countries: the aggressive as well as the humble and poor.
“Very well,” said President Matthews, “I will invoke the Shannon Act. I will authorize the use of federal funds to buy the futures for the expected surplus of fifty million tons of grain.”
Poklewski was jubilant.
“You won’t regret it, Mr. President. This time, the Soviets will have to deal directly with your administration, not with middlemen. We have them over a barrel. There is nothing else they can do.”