Department of State Disarmament Files
The Deputy United States Representative to the Commission
for Conventional Armaments (Osborn) to the Assistant
Secretary of State for United Nations Affairs (Rusk)
restricted
New York, March 25,
1949.
Dear Dean: I am drawing this to your attention
with this personal line because it is a very tight schedule and will take
unremitting pressure to get it done.
Personally, I think it is quite important that such a plan be presented to
the General Assembly, because it would take the heat off our failure to get
agreement from the Soviet on atomic energy, and help show up the Soviet
refusal to agree on anything.
Of course, my judgment on this must be affected by its being my particular
job. You may want to give some consideration as to whether the State
Department considers it important that such a plan should be developed by
the CCA and presented to the next session of
the General Assembly.
The resolution was, as you know, not initiated by the United States. On the
other hand, it is quite clear that Belgium and France, who initiated it,
will not be able to implement it without a great deal of help from us.
Yours sincerely,
[Page 44]
[Enclosure]
Memorandum by the Deputy United States Representative
to the Commission for Conventional Armaments (Osborn) to the United States Representative at the United
Nations (Austin)
restricted
[New
York,] March 25, 1949.
Subject: Schedule for the CCA in its assigned task of implementing the General
Assembly resolution of November 19, 1948, for setting up an
international control agency for receiving, verifying, and publishing
information on arms and armed forces, for submission to the General
Assembly at its next Regular Session in September 1949.
1. Preparatory work in developing the United States position went forward
rapidly in the last week of December and the first two weeks of January,
largely under the direction of Captain Paige Smith and Lt. Commander
Higgins of the RAC in Washington. A
RAC position paper was prepared by
the 15th of January, and after some delay in the State Department was
sent forward for approval and was finally returned March 9th, approved
by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and by the Secretary of State and the
Secretary of Defense.1
On the same date a brief summary2 along similar lines and wholly within the United
States position paper was agreed upon by the representatives of Canada,
the United Kingdom, France and the United States, and sent to their
respective governments for their consideration. The agreed paper
contained a tentative United States listing and a tentative United
Kingdom listing.
2. After consultation with the representatives of the Military Staff
Committee in New York, it is considered that the following program
should be undertaken in the order named:
-
a.
- The representatives of the Mission, including those of the
Military Staff Committee, will determine with the RAC the approximate form which we
should strive for in the final report to be made to the General
Assembly. Evidently it will not be possible for the CCA to prepare a complete treaty
ready for signature. There is not enough time between now and
September, it is not necessary, and it would be inadvisable in
any event. It is, however, necessary to prepare a proposal which
could be a basis for a treaty and which would be sufficiently
clear and extensive to stand up under a General Assembly debate
and to make clear the intent of the parties as to what they were
willing to agree to.
-
b.
- The Defense members of the RAC
should then commence drafting their idea of such a plan.
-
c.
- When the work outlined in b. is well
under way, arrangements should be made with Canada, the United
Kingdom and France to designate qualified technical personnel to
confer with qualified technical United States personnel, and
attempt to reach Four-Power agreement on the form and content of
the plan.
-
d.
- When tentative agreement has been reached by the technically
qualified personnel of the four powers, but not before, then the
CCA and its sub-committees
should be activated and the general negotiations carried on as
rapidly as possible by the appointed delegates of the United
States and other nations, with the advice and assistance of the
qualified technical personnel who have done the preliminary work
and are thoroughly acquainted with it.
3. There remain only five months before the final meetings of the
Security Council preceding the next Regular Session of the General
Assembly. It will require constant pressure to put through any sort of a
plan in this time. Unless the delegates to the CCA can activate the Commission and start work early in
May, there is very little chance of the plan being completed in time for
the General Assembly.
So tight a schedule would require that the preliminary step of preparing
tentative United States proposals for a plan as outlined above should be
well under way by the middle of April. The technically qualified
personnel of the four powers should be at work together, not later than
the end of April, and the CCA should be
activated early in May, as soon as agreement on the Four-Power
discussions seems assured.
4. Copy of this memorandum is being sent to Mr. Dean Rusk.
