Matthews Files79
The Ambassador in the Soviet Union (Smith) to the Director of the Office of European Affairs (Matthews)
Dear Doc: While I was in New York Mr. Baruch gave me a memorandum of a conversation on October 19th between Mr. Franklin A. Lindsay and other members of the Atomic Energy Commission and Mr. Sobolev of the Soviet Union.80 I assume you have a copy of this memorandum which is extremely interesting.81
It has been gone over carefully by the political officers of this Embassy, who believe that the conclusions reached by Mr. Lindsay as a result of this meeting are eminently sound. In fact, from close study of public pronouncements by Soviet officials, the position assumed by Soviet representatives at various international conferences, the authoritative statements of Communist Party ideologues and the line [Page 1017] followed by the Soviet press, our people had reached the same general conclusions which I quote below.
“The Soviet attitude toward American production of atomic bombs and the more general issue of adequate control and inspection is based upon and directly derives from the Soviet world outlook. This outlook is inspired by and inextricably bound up with the Leninist-Stalinist interpretation of historical materialism—a predetermined and dogmatic explanation of all human phenomena. The political philosophy of the men who rule Russia, despite its confusing tactical flexibility, is as intolerant and dogmatic as that which motivated the zealots of Islam or the Inquisition in Spain.
“By the terms of the Soviet outlook, the world is an arena of struggle between the forces of ‘progress’ led by the Soviet Union and the forces of reaction led by the United States and the British Commonwealth. According to Leninist-Stalinist dogma, there can be no compromise between the two camps. One or the other must be destroyed. Because the USSR is advancing along the ‘scientific’ path of historical materialism, the Soviet system is the one predestined to survive. But it is not likely to survive without a struggle. The decaying forces of capitalism are likely, by the same ‘scientific’ rule, to attempt to crush the Soviet Union.
“Because the western world is regarded as organically hostile, because there can be no compromise with the western world excepting for temporary tactical maneuvers, and because there is every likelihood of a war between the imperialist west and the Soviet system, Sobolev was speaking a Stalinist truth when he stated that the USSR was seeking to pursue its own policies in complete freedom and without control from the outside. For the same reason it may be assumed that Sobolev accurately reflected Kremlin thinking when he stated that the world was not ready for world government. The Stalinist doctrine preaches that the Soviet state must grow in strength and authority so long as ‘capitalist encirclement’ continues and that it cannot wither away until ‘capitalist encirclement’ has been eliminated. It is clear from the pronouncements of Soviet ideologues that ‘capitalist encirclement’ will not even diminish until the relative strength of the United States and the British Commonwealth has been drastically reduced below that of the Soviet empire.
“With the foregoing in mind, it is evident that the USSR will not voluntarily cooperate in any effective international scheme for inspection and control of atomic energy. If under pressure it consented as a matter of tactics to pro forma inspection and control, it would still employ every ruse and stratagem to prevent such inspection and control from fulfilling the purposes for which they were designed.
“As basic Soviet strategy is to weaken its ‘enemies’, it is wholly logical that the USSR should exert every effort to bring about the cessation of atomic bomb production in the United States. If the USSR succeeds in this, it will certainly attempt to prevent the resumption of American bomb production. It would, of course, be utterly naive to assume that the cessation of bomb production in the United States would induce the USSR either to abandon its own gigantic atomic research project or to participate sincerely in an effective program [Page 1018] for atomic control and inspection. The Kremlin creed is one of implacable hostility, not collaboration; unremitting preparation for war with the democratic west, not conciliation; the existence of two worlds now and the establishment of one world only when it will assuredly be a Soviet world.
“Mr. Lindsay’s final conclusion, that the proposal for discussion between Molotov and Byrnes was probably prompted by the hope that the USSR might obtain concessions from the United States, would seem to be accurate, for reasons stated above.
“Having said the foregoing, the question arises—what should our future policy with regard to the control of atomic energy be? It is felt that nothing is to be lost and a good deal to be gained by continued pressure for genuine control and inspection. At the same time, production of atomic bombs should, of course, be continued. It might be well to broaden the proposals for control and inspection to include reduction, control and inspection of all armaments (as was suggested in the Embassy’s telegram 2013, June 2682).
“From a security point of view, the United States probably has little to lose in the unlikely event that the USSR accepts such a proposal. The USSR presumably already has extensive information regarding American military strength, while the United States has comparatively slight information regarding the Soviet military position.83
“It is essential, however, in undertaking such a program that the United States attempt to regain from the USSR the moral initiative and leadership in the whole question of armaments reduction, control and inspection. If this is done and non-Soviet world opinion is mobilized behind the United States, we should be able to put the Russians on the spot sufficiently, if not to force adequate control and inspection measures, at least to place our own good faith indelibly on record and expose Soviet ‘peaceful intentions’ for what they are worth and thereby awaken the non-Soviet world to the peril which now threatens it.”
My own opinion is that the ultimate and logical developments of our proposals for the control of atomic energy and the results which would seem to provide the greatest obtainable security for the western world and for ourselves, is the extension of our confidence84 to those nations which are willing in good faith to accept and cooperate with the control measures which we have proposed. This would eventually include most of the nations of the non-Soviet world who are, of course, vitally interested in the security as well as in the economic benefits which might be expected to result if the combined scientific and productive capacities of a group of democratic nations were directed toward the development of atomic power.
[Page 1019]Such a result would inevitably be interpreted by the Soviet Union as a direct threat, and might produce a violent reaction instead of their cooperation for which we have been hoping. However, I can see very little chance of any other really satisfactory solution, and if we now discard our last trump card we have nothing left to play.
I suggest that you furnish a copy of the above evaluation to Mr. Baruch for the information of the appropriate personnel of his Commission. I am sure he will find it interesting.
Sincerely,
- Lot 5, files of Messrs. H. Freeman Matthews and John D. Hickerson who were in 1946 Director and Deputy Director, respectively, of the Office of European Affairs.↩
- The memorandum is printed p. 955. For a memorandum by Mr. John Paton Davies, First Secretary of the Embassy in Moscow, on the memorandum of the conversation with Mr. Sobolev, see vol. vi, p. 806.↩
- Mr. Matthews wrote “I have not.” in the margin opposite this sentence.↩
- See Mr. Thompson’s memorandum to Mr. Hickerson, June 27, and footnote 5, p. 857.↩
- Mr. Matthews placed a vertical line and a question mark in the margin opposite this paragraph.↩
- Mr. Matthews underlined the word “confidence,” placed a question mark opposite it in the margin, and wrote “What does this mean?”↩