115. Letter From the Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission (Strauss) to the Secretary of State 1
Dear Foster : A copy of your letter of February 7 to Governor Stassen 2 is before me and I also have a copy of a memorandum to the President from Governor Stassen dated February 8 with its enclosure.3 I would like to comment to you on both of these documents as I understand that there is a possibility that you may be conferring with the President this afternoon on the subject. I have not been able to discuss the matter with Governor Stassen.
Your letter to Governor Stassen appears to have been written prior to our meeting at the White House on the afternoon of February 7,4 but having talked with you on the subject of the proposed cessation of the production of nuclear materials “except for peaceful purposes”, I was under the impression that you had agreed with the point I had made that this proposal, as expressed, would very seriously impair both our future and our present defense postures. Apparently, whoever drafted your letter of February 7 was unfamiliar with the facts at that time.
I tried to make the same point at the Tuesday meeting at the White House and I believed that there was general concurrence with my exposition of the point that the proposal is loaded against our interest.
In any event, I would like you to review the formal recommendations of the Atomic Energy Commission communicated to Governor [Page 341] Stassen by letter under date of February 7.5 I sent you a copy of this letter, but believe it did not reach your office until after the White House meeting the same day. Besides dealing at some length with the dangers to our security involved in the proposal for the future cessation of the production of nuclear materials, my letter to Governor Stassen contained the following recommendations of the Commission:
- (1)
- The proposed draft letter to Premier Bulganin and the draft messages from the President to the Congress and to the American people be not issued.
- (2)
- Instead, a U.S. position paper on disarmament be approved by the National Security Council for the guidance of the U.S. Delegation in the forthcoming meetings of the Disarmament Sub-Committee in London in March.
- (3)
- The U.S. position paper be discussed with the British, Canadians and French prior to disclosure to the Soviets or to the public.
- (4)
- The proposal now under consideration for agreement for the cessation of all future production of nuclear materials for non-peaceful uses be not incorporated in the U.S. position paper.
If it should be decided to send a letter at this time to Premier Bulganin, I most earnestly urge that paragraph 5 of the redrafted letter of February 8 be omitted or substantially modified to meet our points. It was my understanding at the February 7 meeting that both you and the President wished to withhold for some future occasion the announcement of the allocation of nuclear materials to support foreign nuclear power programs and that it had been settled that no mention of this allocation would now be made. Accordingly, I recommend that paragraph 6 of the redrafted letter to Premier Bulganin be omitted.
Sincerely yours,
- Source: Eisenhower Library, Project Clean Up, Disarmament—Basic Papers. Secret. A copy was sent to Dillon Anderson.↩
- Document 113.↩
- Stassen’s February 8 memorandum has not been found in the Eisenhower Library or Department of State files. The enclosure, a revision of a draft reply to Bulganin, February 8, is not printed. (Department of State, Central Files, 600.0012/2–856)↩
- See Document 111.↩
- Not printed. (Eisenhower Library, Project Clean Up, Disarmamemt—General)↩