Foreign Relations of the United States, 1955–1957, Regulation of Armaments; Atomic Energy, Volume XX

240. Telegram From the Embassy in the United Kingdom to the Department of State¹

London, June 16, 1957—4 p.m.

7000. For the Secretary (Eyes Only) from Stassen.

1. The Soviet formal confirmation in the June 14 meeting of acceptance of inspection posts in connection with a moratorium on nuclear testing² as developed in the May 31 and June 7 informal exchanges,³ now places within reach a first step agreement worthy of serious consideration by the US Government, even though other highly desirable features should later prove to be unattainable.

2. Inspected nuclear testing moratorium and an Arctic-Siberian opening to inspection, with whatever lesser provisions were attached to it, would probably have such world appeal that all significant states would sign and ratify.

3. This would immediately retard, if not prevent, any serious spreading of nuclear weapons manufacture to additional states.

4. It would also increase the safeguards against surprise attack upon the US and through such increased security of the US and its retaliatory force the result would ipso facto decrease the dangers of a calculated war being initiated by the Soviet Union anywhere in the world.

5. In my judgment, the initial moratorium on testing could be negotiated between the 10 months that USDEL has expressed and the 24 months of the Soviet position at a compromise of 18 months. Perhaps I can bring the initial moratorium down to the 12 months included in our policy decision,⁴ but not yet disclosed to the Soviet.

6. On the initial inspection zone, Norway has already given consent and the indications are that Denmark will concur. The increased safeguards against surprise attack which would be attained by opening up the Soviet as deep as Lake Baikal … would seem to commend further checking with the US Senate as to whether under such a first step opening, the increased security against surprise attack would permit the opening of a part of the US territory on a concept that all of the US and all of the Soviet Union would be covered in the third step. Perhaps a briefing of key Senators by Allen Dulles would enlist the Western Senators’ support.

7. The UK will be reluctant to see a first step of these dimensions and so will France, but I believe that both will conclude that such a first step is better than none and both will also conclude that their public opinion and Parliamentary opinion would require their adherence.

8. These thoughts are, of course, particularly for your reflection and those to whom you wish to pass the information, and will not be transmitted by me to others here at this time.

Whitney

1. Source: Department of State, Central Files, 330.13/6–1657. Secret; Eyes Only.
2. For the Soviet proposal on the cessation of all nuclear testing, introduced in the Disarmament Subcommittee on June 14 (U.N. doc. DC/SC.1/60), see Documents on Disarmament, 1945–1959, vol. II, p. 791.
3. See Documents 214 and 231.
4. See paragraph 8 of Document 237.