Reading Room Document

Use of IEEPA for Measures Against the Soviets

This memo considered whether the International Emergency Economic Powers Act provided authority for certain measures the administration wished to take against the Soviet Union. Among other considerations, the OLC concluded that the president likely could not block NBC’s payments to the Soviet Union for broadcasting rights or American citizens’ payments for travel to the Soviet Union under IEEPA. However, the OLC concluded that IEEP likely did provide authority for the president to block loans and credits to the Soviet Union, to forbid Americans from entering into industrial joint venture investments in the Soviet Union, and to prevent American grain dealers from making indirect sales to the Soviet Union through intermediaries.

March 5, 1980