501.BB/11–1846
The Director of the Office of Special Political Affairs (Hiss) to the Under Secretary of State (Acheson)
Subject: Position of our Delegation on Soviet Proposal for Information About Location of Troops
Three main points have been under active consideration for the past few days and will probably arise again in the debate in Committee. Our initial position is, of course, settled by telegram 822 of November 18 from New York which you saw this morning.
1. Our proposal to broaden the inquiry to include troops at home.
It has been recognized in New York that many of the smaller countries are likely to resist this extension for the reason that without such an extension the proposal would not apply to them at all in as much as they have no troops abroad. The only suggestions any of us in the Department have made to New York on this topic have been that the possible adverse reaction from a number of the smaller countries to this broadening of the proposal made it appear unwise for the United States to submit an actual resolution at the outset of the debate. (There were other reasons which we also advanced as to why we should not initiate a resolution at this time.) The Delegation and the Secretary are agreed that we should not propose a resolution at this time.
I learned today that Mr. Dulles and others of the Delegates actually opposed including troops at home. Mr. Dulles in particular thought that if adopted it would simply lead the Soviets to say that numbers of troops were of less importance than some types of weapons and that they would thereupon ask that the inquiry be broadened to include a report on stocks of atomic bombs, etc. This must be the opposition the Secretary mentioned to you. It is, as you know, now settled that we [Page 1020] will continue to assert our support for this extension. Whether we will formally propose it will depend on reactions of other delegations.
2. Inspection and relationship to disarmament proposal.
The British apparently continue to hope to have the whole proposal dropped. In line with this they have advocated the requirement of inspection to enable verification of any figures submitted. They have also indicated a desire to combine consideration of the troop proposal with consideration of the disarmament proposal.
Our Military Staff Committee representatives in New York have also favored inspection as they fear that otherwise our figures, which would be accurate, would appear to the public as unduly large in comparison with the Soviet figures which would probably be markedly understated.
We have suggested to New York that it might be confusing and inconsistent with our major objectives in the disarmament field to combine these two topics. We have also said that the troop proposal would be a poor issue on which to fight out the question of inspection. Most of the smaller countries (on the assumption that we would still be supporting the inclusion of troops at home) would be apt to favor minimal inspection. Our people in New York, apart from the Military Staff Committee representatives, agree with us on both points. They are keeping in close touch with Ben Cohen on this.
3. Unilateral disclosure of our troop dispositions.
We have suggested to New York that in view of the British desire not to disclose the locations of their troops it would be unfair for us to make unilateral disclosure before any Assembly request for such disclosure. This would force the British to do the same against their will. We have suggested that any consideration for unilateral disclosure should therefore be checked with the Secretary through Ben Cohen who would know the effect of this on our commitments to the British.
Our Military Staff Committee representatives in New York have also opposed unilateral disclosure as they think it would weaken our bargaining position in trying to get the Soviets to disclose their troops in territories where the Soviets have not wanted to make such a disclosure.
Ben Cohen thinks that for public relations reasons we may have to state figures of our troops in particular countries, such as China, in the course of debate. He thinks also that we may have to release all our figures at the last moment if the resolution is being smothered to demonstrate that we have nothing to hide and have not tried to kill the resolution in order to cover up. He will keep in close touch with the British and clear the matter with them before making unilateral disclosure.