Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961–1963, Volume VII, Arms Control and Disarmament

113. Memorandum From the President’s Special Assistant (Schlesinger) to President Kennedy⁰

Washington, December 29, 1961.

SUBJECT

• Resumption of Atmospheric Testing: A Proposal

1. On November 2, you said that the atmospheric testing decision would rest on a prior technical decision as to whether “the orderly and essential scientific development of new weapons has reached a point where effective progress is not possible without such tests.” Unfortunately, as we now know, technical evidence will not yield a clearcut answer to this question. Our most expert scientific judgment is that the recent test series enabled the USSR to make gains—but not breakthroughs. Mr. Wiesner, after a study of the data, has reached the conclusion that, while atmospheric tests “would certainly contribute to our military strength, they are not critical or even very important to our over-all military picture.” The decision, in short, is back in the political field.

2. In the meantime, opinion around Washington is crystallizing in favor of the decision to resume atmospheric testing. Even some who see no overriding security need for resumption are fatalistic about the possibility of avoiding it. The essential arguments behind this crystallization are (a) that, if we deny ourselves the right to do what is necessary for our security, nuclear superiority may pass to the Soviet Union by default—not this time, but next time, or the time after that; and (b) that there is nothing to be gained by non-resumption except the transient, illusory and meaningless favor of “world opinion.”

3. I would agree that non-resumption per se is a pallid and negative position, and that an unexplained failure to resume might even be construed as weakness. However, I wonder whether it might not be possible to put non-resumption in a positive and dramatic context—and, at the same time, protect ourselves against the threat of a new cycle of Soviet tests.

4. The underlying reason for world concern over the resumption of atmospheric testing, I believe, is not so much the fallout problem (which will become of diminishing importance as we move into a clean-bomb period) as it is a spreading fear that the arms race is getting completely out of control and the world is sliding hopelessly into chaos. The pattern over the last few years shows rather clearly that, if we start a series of atmospheric tests (especially if at the same time we continue to proclaim that we still have a commanding lead over the USSR), this will precipitate and—for some people—validate the next Soviet cycle and thereby induce further degeneration. At present we are holding the arms race in check; if we go ahead, then the sky becomes the limit. What the world yearns for is a leader who will point out the ominous significance of this process and make one mighty effort to arrest the slide into international anarchy.

5. Would it not be worthwhile for you to consider issuing a statement containing two elements:

a) the announcement that, in a last effort to halt the process of degeneration, we have decided that we will not resume atmospheric testing;

b) the statement that at the same time, we will, in the interests of our own security and that of other free nations, complete all necessary standby preparations for the immediate resumption of atmospheric testing and, if the USSR conducts one more atmospheric test, we will instantly begin a massive group of militarily significant atmospheric tests.

6. The serious arguments against this are (a) that the USSR is going to resume atmospheric testing anyway, and that a unilateral moratorium would give them time to digest the 1961 series and prepare for new strides forward in, say, late 1962; and (b) that, in the meantime, the morale of our own laboratories would so decline that we would be unable to resume our own momentum.

7. As for argument (a), if we kept our testing program in a state of continuous ground alert, ready to go at the first new Soviet test, we would lose, at the most, six months.

As for argument (b), we very much need an impartial evaluation of the extent to which we can, if we put our minds on it, maintain readiness to test. AEC and DOD scientists tend to say that it is impossible to maintain the morale of scientists and the pace of scientific advance unless the men in the laboratories know that they can test their hypotheses. However, the reasons cited for this are not very persuasive. It would seem to me (and I think that Bill Foster agrees) that this is one of those cases where what is convenient and what is necessary are confused; i.e., that it would clearly be nice if all devices could be tested in the open air; but the essential work can still probably be done without such tests. I have raised this subject with Ros Gilpatric, who has now ordered a DOD analysis of the issues involved.¹

I do not believe that the real problem has yet been posed: that is, how to maintain morale and advance in the laboratories without assurance of atmospheric testing. If some one were given an order to do this, I am sure it could be done. If a disgruntled set of scientists went out of the laboratories, for example, another set would respond to the very possibility of avoiding atmospheric tests. Moreover, the present proposal would not exclude testing underground or in outer space, nor would it exclude bringing testing atmospheric tests to the very brink of fulfillment. And it commits us to resumption as soon as the USSR resumes; so that those who argue that the USSR will resume in any case should not (if they believe their own argument) suffer any loss of morale at all. I see no reason why this could not be a time of vigorous technical advance in our weaponry.

8. There is also the argument that non-resumption would show us to be weak and would strengthen the Soviet claim to be the greatest power in the world. But it can be argued with equal plausibility that it is resumption which would produce this effect because it would suggest that we have to go into the atmosphere in order to make up for our deficiencies. We are, indeed, in a logical dilemma as a result of repeated statements that we are “ahead.” If we are “ahead,” why test in the atmosphere? If we do test in the atmosphere, does this not constitute a confession that we are “behind”?

The arguments in terms of political effect tend to cancel each other out, though I agree that any nation indisputably ahead in the nuclear field would have a major psychological advantage. But since an indisputable lead is hardly possible for any nation, it would seem better to stick to your assurance that “no nuclear test in the atmosphere will be undertaken, as the Soviet Union has done, for so-called psychological or political reasons.”

9. On the other side, conditional non-resumption would not necessarily make the essential balance of military power more insecure than it would be if we resumed atmospheric tests; for the relative gains we would make by resumption would probably be cancelled out by the next Soviet cycle which our resumption would provoke and legitimatize. In other words, we would presumably prefer to have our nuclear superiority (or the nuclear standoff, whatever the situation is) at the lower rather than higher stages of the nuclear apocalypse; and presumably the cessation of atmospheric testing, as compared with what would be the case if both sides pressed on in the atmosphere, would—at least by precluding the development of a reliable AICBM system—tend to maintain more stability as well as to halt the slide into chaos.

Everyone agrees, in short, that the serious danger to the US comes, not from the past series of tests, but from the next series. Everyone seems to agree that we would be ready to settle for things as they are now, if we had absolute assurance that the USSR would not start a new sequence in the atmosphere. The problem, in other words, is to deter the USSR from atmospheric resumption—and the threat of a series of our own, ready to go, is probably the best possible deterrent.

10. More than that, with Khrushchev discredited by Hungary, testing and a thousand other things, with Nehru discredited by Goa, with the UN discredited by Goa and the Congo, the US has an unmatched opportunity to recover the moral and political leadership of the world. I know that it is currently fashionable to say that “moral leadership” could not matter less. But history refutes this contention. For years, we rested our policy in Latin America on the employment of force—and our position, by all power criteria, grew steadily worse. Then FDR renounced the use of force, established the Good Neighbor policy—and our power position in Latin America was transformed. Wilson and Roosevelt enjoyed an influence on world events out of all proportion to the military power at their disposal simply because they regarded “world opinion” as a basic constituent of power. Even Soviet policy is not based on a rejection of “world opinion”; it is based rather on the belief that world opinion can be more successfully manipulated by terror than by ideals—an option not open to us unless we change the whole character of our society.

The good opinion purchased by the refusal to resume atmospheric testing would not be in itself a great accretion to our power. But it would enable us to move swiftly ahead in a number of areas which can mean a genuine strengthening of our world position. We should not consider this as an act in isolation but as a prelude to a number of planned actions and demands which would enable us to cash in on our self-restraint.

Nor is it necessarily so that a conditional refusal to resume atmospheric testing would be unpopular in the United States. The most recent Gallup Poll shows the general public evenly divided on the question of whether, in the light of Soviet testing, the US should go into the atmosphere (yes 44%, no 45%). This showed a decided swing of opinion against atmospheric resumption; 4 months earlier 55% favored resumption and only 26% opposed.

Arthur Schlesinger, jr.

0. Source: Kennedy Library, National Security Files, Subjects Series, Nuclear Weapons Tests, 12/21/61-1/8/62. No classification marking. A handwritten note reads: “President saw.”
1. See Document 118.