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

8. Memorandum From the Deputy Director of the U.S. Disarmament Administration (Gullion) to Secretary of State Rusk⁰

Washington, March 15, 1961.

SUBJECT

• Instructions for Nuclear Test Delegation

Discussion:

Attached for your approval are the instructions for the U.S. Delegation to the Conference on the Discontinuance of Nuclear Weapons Tests.¹ These instructions have been drafted to reflect the decisions of the Committee of Principals and of the President. Information copies of this draft have been sent to all members of the Committee of Principals and to the Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs. The draft has been approved by Mr. Dean and Mr. McCloy. The Department of Defense has advised us of their concurrence. There are, however, three points in which the AEC has not concurred, as follows:

1) The AEC staff continues to feel that no upper limit of 20 should be placed on the escalator formula for on-site inspections (para. 3(d), pages 4-5);

2) The AEC staff believes that we should explicitly state that the seismic research program should begin before signature of the treaty (para. 3(b), page 3);

3) The AEC staff feels that the Control Commission should not be given authority to alter Phase I components of the system (para. 5(f), page 9).

We have reviewed the specific issues with Mr. McCloy, who feels as we do, that we should proceed with the instructions as drafted in view of their acceptability to the other agencies involved and in view of the primary responsibility of the State Department on the matters to which the AEC staff has taken exception.

With respect to the AEC’s first point, which is the only major one, we feel that the nature of the escalation proposal has been thoroughly considered by the Committee of Principals and that the proposed position has been approved by the President. Furthermore, we have advised the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee of the proposed position.

With respect to the AEC’s second point, we have pointed out that our proposed position does not preclude the starting of the seismic research program prior to the signature of the treaty, if this can be agreed. However, we object to making it mandatory that the research program be launched before the treaty is signed.

With respect to the AEC’s third point, we are simply applying to Phase I a principle which has been proposed by the U.S. and accepted by the USSR for Phase II and III. We regard this as entirely a political matter.

Recommendation:

That you approve the attached instruction for the U.S. Delegation to the nuclear test talks.²

0. Source: Department of State, Central Files, 397.5611-GE/3-1561. Confidential. Drafted by Spiers.
1. Not printed.
2. Rusk’s stamped signature and date indicate that he approved the draft instructions that day. They were sent, apparently unchanged, to Geneva as Nusup 1083, March 15. (Department of State, Central Files, 397.5611-GE/3-1561) Dean outlined the joint U.S.-U.K. position at the reconvened Geneva Conference on March 21, and the U.S.-U.K. draft treaty was tabled on April 18. See Documents on Disarmament, 1961, pp. 55-65 and 82-126, respectively. Extensive documentation on the coordination of the U.S.-U.K. position on the draft test ban treaty is in Department of State, Central Files 600.0012 and 397.5611-GE for January-April 1961.