600.0012/11–1754
Memorandum of Conversation, by Howard Meyers of the Office of United Nations Political and Security Affairs1
- Subject:
- Revision of NSC 112, Basic Disarmament Policy
- Participants:
- Department of State:
- Messrs. Bowie, Arneson and Stelle, S/P
- Messrs. Smith and Farley, S/AE
- Howard Meyers, UNP
- Department of Defense:
- Major General Loper
- Major Wriedt
- AEC:
- Messrs. Hall and Trevithick
- Drs. English, Thornton and Fine
Mr. Bowie outlined the points of agreement and of disagreement, as he saw them, between Defense and State views on basic disarmament policy. State and Defense agree:
- 1.
- A continuation of present trends in the scale of Soviet and U.S. military power, particularly in the field of nuclear weapons and means of delivering them, may well tip the military balance in favor of the Soviets in the near future. This also increases the dangers of peripheral aggression.
- 2.
- The U.S. must take a public position favoring disarmament.
- 3.
- It is not possible technically to account fully for past production of nuclear material.
- 4.
- It would be feasible to close down fissionable material production facilities for a considerable period of time, provided this is done within the next few years, and thereby substantially minimize the danger that the Soviet Union could destroy the United States, while maintaining effective U.S. nuclear superiority over the USSR.
- 5.
- There must be effective and far-reaching inspection in a disarmament program.
- 6.
- The control agency must be in position and ready to exercise its functions prior to the commencement of agreed reductions and limitations.
- 7.
- There should be stages in carrying out an agreed disarmament program.
- 8.
- A disarmament program should include both the nuclear and the conventional aspects.
- 9.
- The U.S. should be free to act in its own interest if there are violations of an agreed disarmament program.
State and Defense disagree on the following:
- 1.
- State believes the UN plan for international control of atomic energy is no longer feasible; that nuclear weapons can no longer be completely eliminated from national armaments; that the U.S. should support a plan for control of atomic energy which will provide for reduction of nuclear weapons rather than their elimination, and for the retention of a sufficient number of nuclear weapons to guard against the probable error in accounting for past fissionable production by other countries; that this disarmament plan should not assume good faith but provide means to detect breaches in the agreement. Defense, while agreeing that the UN plan can no longer eliminate nuclear weapons, continues to support the UN plan but is only prepared to implement this plan when the Soviet Union can concretely demonstrate this good faith by other means.
- 2.
- State believes that it is necessary in the interests of U.S. security to seek a disarmament plan of the nature described above, rather than allow the present military threat to continue. Defense believes that no disarmament plan is of any value in the absence of prior demonstrated good faith by the Soviet Union.
- 3.
- State believes that past United States efforts to achieve disarmament have helped strengthen the support of our allies for general U.S. policy objectives. Defense considers that our past support for disarmament has been detrimental to building free world strength, as negotiations on disarmament have weakened the support of our allies for necessary rearmament programs.
General Loper, while agreeing that Mr. Bowie had in substance fairly stated the issues of agreement and disagreement, emphasized that the basic problem for Defense was that it believed any disarmament plan would be disadvantageous to the U.S. since the free world would reduce its armaments or fail to support its existing military strength adequately in the period between the signing of a disarmament agreement and the time when there would be real evidence that the Soviet Union intended to live up to the scheme. He explained that when Defense talked about “good-faith” it meant that a nation must be willing to accept a detailed disarmament agreement which would at the very outset, infringe on its sovereign rights, in the sense of permitting extensive international inspections and control. He divided this problem into three stages: the initial stage of disclosure and verification, the supervisory stage of reductions and limitations, and the control stage at which the agreed levels were maintained. He opposed drafting a disarmament program which would be couched only in broad language, since it was necessary to provide a detailed disarmament plan as a test of that good faith which Defense believes essential. Otherwise, the Soviet Union would agree on the general principles without any commitment to those infringements on sovereignty which Defense believed fundamental. It was his conclusion that it was not in the interest of the United States to reach agreement on disarmament, whereas it was advisable to continue negotiations in this field because of the strong public pressure for such a demonstration of continued support for disarmament.
Mr. Bowie remarked that it would be perfectly consistent with clever bad faith for the Soviet Union or any other state to accept a disarmament program which in one sense or another infringed on its so-called sovereign rights by permitting international inspections. The difficulty lay in defining either “good faith” or “sovereignty”. In State’s view, the test was the degree of risk which the United States could accept in a disarmament program, and whether this risk could be accepted as better than continuation of present military trends. It was quite possible that a more practical approach would be to go step-by-step rather than spelling out all details of a disarmament program, and thus benefit at the end of each stage from the experience gathered during the course of this stage, so far as working out details for the next stage. Perhaps it [Page 1566] would be better if the NSC could examine this problem from the standpoint of the basic elements of a disarmament program, along the lines contained in State’s draft paper of November 9, 1954,2 rather than get into details.
General Loper disagreed, and emphasized the Defense view that the disarmament plan should be in greater detail.
The AEC representatives commented on the State paper of November 9, making two principal points:
- 1.
- Real problems were raised by State’s proposal that nuclear fuel removed from national arsenals each year should be turned over to the International Agency and converted into a form unsuitable for weapons use but suitable for reactor use. A distinction must be made between U–235 and plutonium, and the State proposal was certainly practicable for U–235 but it was quite difficult to do this for plutonium.
- 2.
- The sections of the State plan which related to reducing the risk of nuclear war are generally too optimistic in tone, in large measure because of the difficulties of accounting adequately for past production of fissionable material. Nevertheless, the AEC representatives agreed that the UN plan was not feasible and that a plan generally along the lines proposed by State would be a feasible approach, provided that it was recognized at all times that a considerable risk was involved. They agreed that risks for the U.S. had increased measurably since 1946 and that a continuation of the present impasse on disarmament does not improve the relative situation between the Soviet Union and the United States.
Summing up, Mr. Bowie proposed that the NSC should first decide whether or not it was in the basic interests of the U.S. to reach agreement on disarmament, to meet the basic issue posed by the Defense attitude, and then should direct the formulation of the kind of disarmament plan which would result from this decision.
General Loper suggested that it was better for the NSC to consider both aspects of the problem at one time; that State and Defense should each present their papers, together with an analysis of points of agreement and disagreement. Mr. Hall supported this approach. Mr. Bowie said he would consider this matter and communicate subsequently with General Loper.