711.5611/6–1754
Memorandum by the Secretary of State to the Special Assistant to the President (Cutler)1
- Subject:
- Moratorium on Tests
In reply to your memorandum of June 92 —as you know we are now clearing our reply to the Soviet note of April 27 with the other governments concerned and this reply should go forward to the Soviets later in the month. Our purpose is to try to get a clarification from the USSR of their ultimate position on the President’s proposal. Our thinking has been to defer any decision about establishing an international pool without Russian participation until we had obtained such clarification.
I agree that we should be stepping up our planning for machinery to permit foreign access to some fissionable material and data and technology bearing on the constructive aspects of atomic energy. I suggest that a working group be set up under the Planning Board composed of representatives of the Atomic Commission, the Department of Defense and the Department of State to make recommendations as to the best means to implement the President’s proposal if the USSR does not participate. At the same time, [Page 1462] the views of the United Kingdom, France, and Canada could be solicited.
Since all agree that we should vigorously pursue a program to develop the constructive uses of atomic energy throughout the world, this Planning Board study could be limited to considering whether this aim will best be reached by an agency under the aegis of the UN as originally contemplated or by “Agreements of Cooperation” under the atomic energy amendments now being considered by the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy. As for using an announcement of such a program to cancel out the bad effects of a possible United States turndown of the test moratorium proposal—I would be inclined to make no announcement of such turndown if this proves to be our decision. However, until we can see more clearly the likely upshot of the moratorium matter, I would like to hold off any further comment about linking those two questions.