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

33. Progress Report Prepared by the President’s Special Assistant (Stassen)¹

Washington, May 26, 1955.

SPECIAL STAFF STUDY FOR THE PRESIDENT—NSC ACTION NO. 1328²

A Progress Report on a Proposed Policy of the United States on the Question of Disarmament

Submitted to the President and to the Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense by the Special Assistant to the President, subject to review by the National Security Council.

Designed to facilitate the process of policy formation by bringing into focus areas of agreement and of disagreement and by suggesting solutions.

I. The Most Important Objective.

Under the current policies and the leadership of the President, the most important objective of the United States is peace—with security, freedom, and economic well-being—for the long-term future for the people of our country. This objective must be ever in mind in considering and in implementing the policy of the United States on the question of disarmament. It has been a constant and basic factor in the study which has resulted in the progress report here presented.

II. Armaments, Tensions, and Dangers of War.

A high and rising level of arms is a reflection of tension growing out of disagreements between nations, and it is in turn a source of increased tension. An arms race is thus both effect and cause. An intelligent and sound policy on the question of disarmament must recognize this dual characteristic of heavy armament.

A. Much of the confusion with regard to arms races—limitations of arms—disarmament—has come about through endeavors to treat the level of arms as all cause or all effect.

B. It should not be anticipated that any agreement on the level of arms at this time would, in and of itself, solve other issues which cause a danger of war.

C. It may be expected that an agreement on the level of arms would reduce the tensions caused by armaments, and thereby an arms agreement would contribute to a climate in which other issues may be resolved without war.

D. Modern thermonuclear weapons and delivery systems have this dual characteristic of cause and effect in an extreme degree, and such weapons can only be adequately considered in the context of the total posture and policy of the nations involved.

E. The tension between the USSR and the United States reflects basic and ideological disagreements of economic systems, social concepts, religious beliefs, political forms, and national objectives. This has led to an arms race of unprecedented peacetime proportions.

III. The Current Situation.

Some of the pertinent fundamentals of the current situation, subject to review by the Departments and Agencies concerned, are stated for the purposes of this progress report in the following premises:

A. The United States has the capability to inflict devastating damage upon the USSR and upon Communist China, but does not have the capability, alone or with our NATO Allies, to destroy effectively nor to occupy forcibly the communist controlled one-third of the world.

1. The damage inflicted may bring about surrender or may result in a revolution consummated by elements not hostile to the United States, but neither of these prospects carry the degree of certainty necessary to qualify as a basis for United States policy.

B. The USSR has the capability to inflict heavy damage upon the United States and devastating damage upon Western Europe, but does not have the capability to destroy completely or defeat the United States, or the European NATO area backed by the United States.

C. The element of surprise is of very great importance in determining the extent of damage inflicted or received.

1. Thus, the positioning and the movements of armed forces, and accurate intelligence in this respect are of exceptional significance.

D. The advantage of thermonuclear weapons is heavily weighted in favor of the offense and adverse to the defense.

E. The major areas of the world are engaged in an arms race which adds to the total military capability each year and requires approximately $90 billion per year, or 10 per cent of the world’s gross national product.

1. The Federal Republic of Germany is beginning to rearm in accordance with Western European Union and NATO force goals, and this rearmament is considered by the USSR to be especially adverse to its security and its interests.

2. Japan is likewise beginning to rearm but with less clear outlook for early significant strength and without comparable indication of concern by me USSR.

3. The NATO Council has agreed for planning purposes on the use of modem weapons in defense of the NATO area and the SHAPE Command is actively planning for that end.

F. In 1946, the United States proposed the elimination of nuclear weapons under certain strict conditions of international inspection and control. In concert with its Allies it has considered and declared itself prohibited under the United Nations Charter from the use of nuclear weapons except against aggression, and on its own initiative has declared itself prohibited from the use of all weapons, except against aggression. The United States proposal, as elaborated into a United Nations position approved by all member states except the Soviet bloc, provides for the progressive and balanced reduction of all armaments and armed forces and the elimination of nuclear weapons, by pre-agreed and carefully safeguarded stages, supervised by an inspection and control system more extensive than the Soviet has yet been ready to accept.

1. Over the nine years, the United States position has continued to include the proposed elimination of nuclear weapons, but has been substantially modified through a contraction of the projected stages in which disarmament would take place; a progressive withdrawal from the concept of international ownership of the crucial elements in the nuclear production chain; implicit abandonment of insistence on waiver of the veto in Security Council enforcement action against violations of the disarmament treaty; the provision of a phased plan for disclosure and verification of military information and facilities; and by relating the reduction of conventional armaments, stage by stage, to the disclosure and verification process and to the elimination of atomic weapons.

G. Since the development of a thermonuclear weapon, and since the changes in nuclear technology began radically to transform the prospects for international control of atomic energy, United States policy on arms control has been under intensive review without agreement. There have been some important disagreements on elements of policy for the immediate future including:

1. The feasibility under present world conditions of any disarmament.

2. The virtues of a provisional “limited” approach to the problem, particularly in respect to inspection versus a comprehensive step-by-step program negotiated as a package.

3. The merits and dements, from the United States point of view, of early cessation of nuclear production.

4. The proper ratio between conventional and nuclear disarmament.

H. A partial disagreement has developed between the United Kingdom, France, and the United States in that the United States neither explicitly supported nor rejected the “compromise” proposal, advanced by the former on April 19, 1955, in London, which provided that the elimination of nuclear weapons be undertaken when 75 per cent of agreed cuts in conventional weapons had been accomplished and be completed concurrently with remaining conventional reductions thereafter.³ The United States position has been that the elimination of nuclear weapons should occur only at the end of the process of reduction of conventional weapons.

I. The principal feature of USSR plans for almost nine years has been an unconditional ban on nuclear weapons. However, in 1954 (with some confused back-sliding at the beginning of the London 1955 talks), the USSR ostensibly accepted the principle of some reduction in conventional armaments prior to the effective date of prohibition and elimination of nuclear weapons. In the Ninth General Assembly, September, 1954, the USSR accepted the principle of a program in two stages, as projected in the Anglo-French proposal made in the London talks of 1954.⁴

The most recent USSR proposal (also for a two-phase program) was advanced in London on May 10, 1955, at the United Nations Disarmament Subcommittee Session and released publicly in Moscow on the same day.⁵ This proposal may be purely for propaganda purposes, or it may indicate a renewed effort to open serious negotiations, or it may reflect both motivations. In its present form the Soviet proposal is clearly unacceptable. It does have the appearance of adopting some of the positions previously taken by the Western countries.

1. It ostensibly accepts:

a. A program in two stages but would limit it to two years (1956 and 1957), while the Western proposals set no time limit for these complex and diverse operations.

b. The Anglo-French “compromise” formula for concurrent elimination of nuclear weapons and conventional disarmament through the last 25 per cent of the disarmament process, as described in H above.

c. The Western proposal for specific numerical ceilings for all conventional armaments and armed forces, instead of its own proposition for a cross-the-board one-third cut. The figures as accepted by the USSR would be: 1,500,000 each for the United States, China, and the USSR; 650,000 each for France and the United Kingdom; and current establishments would be reduced to these levels by 50 per cent installments in each of two years, 1956 and 1957.

d. A single international control authority instead of two, as it originally proposed, one to operate at each stage.

e. The Western ideas on a freeze of conventional weapons, armed forces, and military expenditures, simultaneously with the first phase.

2. The USSR has also introduced some new elements into this plan:

a. A moratorium on nuclear weapons testing, beginning in 1956.

b. Provision for agreement in 1956 on progressive “dismantling” of military bases on foreign soil, with elimination of all bases to be completed some time after 1957.

c. Evacuation of all foreign troops from Germany.

d. Germany limited to internal police forces, and this limitation enforced by the Big Four powers.

e. The Chinese Communist Government would participate in the scheme as a permanent member of the Security Council of the United Nations.

3. The USSR has thus placed disarmament in a political package in which it hints at the possibility of withdrawal of USSR troops from positions in Central Europe, in exchange for a pull back of United States bases abroad.

4. The Soviet plan does not provide for the cessation of nuclear production; nor would it cease nuclear weapons production until the second stage. Most important, the Soviet proposals on international control still appear grossly inadequate:

a. It would apparently apply only to facilities accepted by the USSR as “subject to control.”

b. The inspection machinery would not be in place and operating before either the “freeze” or disarmament began.

c. It would apparently have only very limited application to atomic facilities. The new Soviet position now justifies this limitation not so much on the grounds of protecting Soviet sovereignty as on the grounds of the inefficiency of inspection for atomic materials in the light of changes in the means of production.

d. The Soviet offers a Korean-Armistice-Commission-type of control over “big” ports, railways, airdromes, etc., which is supposed to yield a cross-check on nuclear capabilities and intentions.

IV. The Next Ten Years.

At this point, ten years after the end of World War II, an estimate of the situation for the next ten years in the absence of an arms agreement should be projected as a prelude to establishing United States policy on the question of disarmament, although such a projection is obviously difficult to make.

A. Assuming the continuation of the present form and nature of government of the USSR, it is assumed for the purpose of this report, subject to a new national intelligence estimate, that the USSR will attain during the next ten years, and probably within the next five years, such capability of thermonuclear weapons and of air missile, and naval delivery methods, that it will have the power to destroy effectively the United States through a surprise attack.

1. This capability will be attained without an inter-continental ballistic missile. The development of such a missile by the USSR would accelerate the date.

B. The United States and its security partners will attain within five years, and continue to have for the second five years, a capability to destroy effectively the USSR with or without a surprise attack and will retain this capability even though an initial surprise attack is launched against the United States.

C. A number of other nations will attain an important nuclear weapons capability, probably including the United Kingdom, Canada, France, Japan, and Communist China, and possibly including Germany, India, and Argentina, notwithstanding some present policies or agreements to the contrary.

D. The competitive clash between the free and the communist systems will continue, with special intensity in the colonial areas, in the new sovereignties recently emerged from colonialism, in less developed countries generally, and in the two fractions of Germany.

E. Military forces of all major nations will be positioned and maneuvered to minimize being taken by surprise and to be prepared for swift retaliation.

1. These extreme levels of arms would also carry with them enormous potentials for major incidents and local triggering of war.

F. Mutual deterrence will be a powerful factor, but mutual fear and extreme tension will be widespread, and a portion of the military and civilian leaders in each major nation will advocate striking first to prevent being taken by surprise.

V. A Cardinal Aim of United States Polity.

The projected condition under which the USSR would have the capability of effective destruction of the United States through a surprise attack would be so adverse to United States survival that a cardinal aim of United States policy should be to prevent this condition from arriving and to safeguard against any surprise attack.

A. There are three broad methods of preventing the attainment of a future total weapons capability by the USSR.

1. Voluntary unilateral decision by the USSR.

2. Enforced unilateral action of the USSR through an ultimatum or through the use of external force.

3. Multilateral effective agreement with the USSR to limit arms. The first is highly unlikely; the second is quite certain to mean war. Maximum concentration on the third is indicated.

B. A secondary aim of United States policy should be to dissuade third nations from attaining a nuclear weapons capability, unless it be as an essential counterpoise to a growing USSR nuclear weapons threat.

VI. Proposed United States Policy.

If the foregoing assumptions and estimates are accepted, United States policy on the question of disarmament in the present state of world tensions should be directed primarily toward preventing the USSR from attaining a capability of destroying effectively the United States through a surprise attack, should be concentrated on the method of a multilateral arms limitation agreement to reach this aim, and should improve the prospects for peace and establish United States initiative toward that end.

A. The United States policy should be guided by these essential principles:

1. The security of the United States should not depend in any essential matter upon the good faith of any other country.

2. So long as the communist form of government continues, it should be assumed that the USSR and Communist China will act in bad faith at any time such action is considered by their rulers to be to their advantage.

3. It is not possible by any known scientific, or other, means to account for the total previous production of nuclear weapons material, and the margin of error is sufficient to allow for clandestine fabrication or secretion of a quantity of thermonuclear weapons of devastating power.

4. It is not possible by any known scientific or other means to be absolutely certain of the control of all future production of nuclear weapons material.

5. World government is neither feasible nor desirable with ideologies as fundamentally diverse as communism and freedom clashing in the world.

6. The risks to the present and future security of the United States should never be increased and should in some measure be decreased as compared to the risks inherent in a continuation of an absence of agreement.

a. The United States should never agree to and make any reductions or accept any controls in regard to its own armaments unless it has positive proof that the USSR is actually carrying out simultaneously at least comparable reductions or controls in regard to its armaments.

7. The United States should not advance or join in any proposals which it would not be willing to respect if agreed.

a. The United States should never cease searching for a sound agreement and should always be willing at an appropriate time and place to enter serious discussions in pursuit of such an agreement.

8. The substantial majority of the people of the United States and of the Congress of both political parties must be convinced of the desirability of any arms agreement entered into by the United States.

9. The United States must never renounce its basic philosophy of the nature of man, of his right to be free, of his existence under God, wherever he may live.

a. Thus, the United States must never in any manner directly or indirectly indicate agreement with or acceptance of the domination of the people of the satellite nations by the USSR nor concurrence in the totalitarian system within the USSR over its own citizenry.

B. The United States policy should be influenced by these desirable principles:

1. A favorable opinion of any arms agreement proposed by the United States should be held by the following:

a. The United Kingdom and Canada.

b. The substantial majority of the governments and peoples of the free countries now allied to the United States.

c. The majority of the governments and peoples of the neutral nations.

d. The majority of the people within the Soviet Union and behind the Iron Curtain.

2. All militarily significant nations should be included in any arms agreement.

3. The status of the United Nations should be maintained or improved by any arms agreement entered into by the United States.

4. No sudden economic shocks to the United States should flow from any arms agreement.

5. No false impression of security of the United States should be fostered.

6. The peaceful uses of nuclear energy should not be seriously impeded by any such arms agreement.

7. The export and import of arms should be controlled.

C. Upon the basis of the foregoing analysis of essential and desirable principles, and upon the assumptions and estimates stated, the United States should now endeavor to reach an initial agreement with the USSR and with all major countries of the world on a first phase plan with the following features:

1. Stop the arms race through leveling off all armament efforts— nuclear, bacterial, chemical, conventional—by all nations at an early fixed date. This would include the cessation of all nuclear production, limited production of conventional weapons for replacement only, and no further expansion of foreign bases, paramilitary, or foreign stationed forces.

2. Establish an International Armaments Commission with the right to observe and inspect by land, sea, or air, with the aid of scientific instruments, all existing armaments and to communicate the observations to an international center outside the country being inspected, without interference.

3. Such inspection service to be in place and ready to function on the date fixed for stopping the arms race and to be a condition precedent.

a. Such inspection service to include specifically United States nationals within the USSR and within the entire Communist area, and conversely to include USSR nationals within the United States in a balanced proportion.

4. Require all nations to disclose on parallel dates in stages all existing armament and to submit to verification of the disclosure by the inspectors.

5. Stop all nuclear weapons testing as of the same fixed date the arms race is stopped.

6. Require an advance report to the International Armaments Commission of all projected movements of armed forces in international air or waters or in foreign air, land or waters.

7. Grant to the USSR and the United States the right to open the agreement to renegotiation at any time on six months’ notice specifying unsatisfactory developments, and to terminate by renunciation without advance notice in the event of a violation of the agreement by the opposite party confirmed by the International Armaments Commission.

8. Grant to all other signatory nations as a group, or to the United Nations Assembly, the right to open the agreement to renegotiation by majority vote on six months’ notice, but otherwise to continue in full force and effect upon each individual secondary signator without right of withdrawal.

9. Provide that a violation of the agreement by any signator shall be considered as a threat to the peace under the United Nations Charter, and, therefore, bring into play all of the peaceful settlement measures of the Charter and Article 51 on individual or collective self-defense.

10. Upon the cessation of nuclear production, provide that all available nuclear material not included in weapons shall be strictly and effectively controlled and shall be placed in a peaceful uses stockpile owned by the country of source but safeguarded in a diluted state and supervised by the International Armaments Commission. Renewed nuclear production to be permitted under control of the International Armaments Commission only when required for peaceful uses.

11. Give special consideration to the status of the United Kingdom in the entire arrangement, particularly if a substantial United Kingdom nuclear weapons capacity is attained prior to the effective date of an agreement.

D. The United States to make it clear that this first phase plan is considered by the United States as the prelude to future agreed reduction in the present level of armaments, conventional and nuclear.

1. The United States will give thorough sympathetic consideration to any proposal for a reciprocal, enforceable, balanced, equitable reduction below present armament levels.

2. Similar consideration will be given to reciprocal reduction of foreign bases, of armed forces located in other nations, and of long range bombers and missiles.

3. The United States anticipates that such further reduction may follow or parallel settlement of other issues causing international tension; for example:

• a. Geographically divided nations.
• b. Interference by international communist organizations.
• c. Special trade restrictions.
• d. Other nationals held in prison.
• e. Other violations of international rights and agreements.

4. United States consideration of other proposals to be guided by the principles set forth in V and VI above.

5. The United States to indicate that it anticipates making further early proposals for reduction if the first phase plan is agreed and successfully implemented and, in the meantime, withdraws for purposes of review all previous outdated proposals.

VII. Discussion of the Proposed First Phase Plan.

The first phase plan here proposed could be characterized as the establishment of a high open-arms plateau.

A. It would not ban nuclear weapons. This is a major change in a nine-year old policy of the United States. This is an essential change for the following reasons:

1. A ban cannot be made effective and guaranteed since pre-ban production in the Soviet Union could not be completely accounted for under any known scientific method of inspection and post-ban clandestine production of substantial quantities could not be eliminated with certainty.

2. In the absence of nuclear weapons, there is no effective manner of restraining aggression by the USSR and Communist China regardless of what levels of conventional arms might be agreed upon.

3. Even though banned, nuclear weapons could be and would be produced within a few months during the course of any war initiated with conventional weapons.

a. Nuclear weapons are knowledge plus material. The knowledge cannot be repealed. The material is available to every major nation and on every continent.

B. Both the USSR and the United States would be stopped short of the capability of mutual annihilation and neither would be required to trust the good faith of the other.

1. This would attain the cardinal objective of United States policy.

2. Further disarmament results would be desirable, but none would compare in importance to this first result.

C. The possibility of a surprise attack on the United States would be minimized. The positioning and the reporting of inspectors and the notification of projected international movements of armed forces would make a surprise attack on the United States almost impossible.

1. The United States would forego the opportunity to launch a surprise attack upon the USSR in exchange for substantial assurance against a surprise attack upon the United States.

D. The development of a nuclear weapons capability on the part of other countries would be minimized if not prevented, with the probable exception of the United Kingdom.

E. Some reduction in the financial burden of armaments would result.

F. The openness of arms and knowledge of their movements is far more important than their precise level.

G. World tensions would be reduced.

H. The security of the United States would be improved.

I. Skillful and thorough development of public understanding throughout the free world will be necessary in such a new policy and new plan. But it is realistic and based upon hard facts. It can be understood and will be supported by the people.

J. The affirmative initiative for such a realistic and far-reaching first phase plan will be recognized throughout the world as a serious and sincere endeavor and will tend to take the initiative away from the Soviet’s current neutralist drive.

K. Fundamentally, it reflects a conclusion that there is a brighter prospect for peace through a policy of agreed strength than through a policy of agreed weakness. It is not expected that the United States will renounce its belief that all men should be free, but it is expected that the United States will continue to renounce the use of aggressive force to set men free. It is not expected that the USSR will renounce its concept that all nations should be under the communist system, but it is expected that the USSR will renounce and refrain from the use of aggressive force to communize other peoples. In a world in which these diverse systems are in competition, weakness on the part of the United States, even though it be a mutual weakness, would be more likely to lead to war and to a lack of security. This is especially true because of the geographic location of the USSR and Communist China in the center of the Eurasian land mass where over two-thirds of the people of the world reside. It is especially true when we contemplate the unorthodox methods short of aggression which would be intensified by the communists without any effective restraint upon their center.

VIII. The Mutual Advantage of the USSR.

The foregoing sections have emphasized the advantages of the proposed initial plan to the United States. It is obvious that an agreement will not be reached unless it is also to the mutual advantage of the USSR. It is submitted that characteristics of mutual advantage are included.

A. The answer to the mutual advantage question depends in large measure upon the intentions for the future of the rulers in the Kremlin. If it is their intention to launch an aggressive war at some future timing of their choice, especially if it is their intention to do so with an initial surprise attack on the United States, then neither the proposed plan, nor any other plan acceptable to the United States will be acceptable to the USSR. But if this is not their intention, then the plan should have advantages to the USSR, for the alternative projected capability for mutual annihilation must be unattractive to them as well as to us.

B. The prospect, in the absence of agreement, of a nuclear weapons capability in Germany, Communist China, and Japan would be especially adverse to Soviet interests and would commend the proposed plan.

1. There are many indications of extreme concern of the USSR over German rearmament. An agreed leveling off as of the date of initiating effective inspection under the United States proposal would limit future German armament to a degree and in a manner much more attractive from the Soviet viewpoint than the Western European Union Treaty, and would include USSR participation on a reciprocal basis in the inspection of German armament.

2. Japanese rearmament will also be of increasing concern to the USSR, and it would be likewise limited by the first phase agreement contemplated.

3. The USSR will have difficulty in refusing to supply Red China with nuclear weapons in future years, and yet must have a reluctance to place such power in China with the possibility of a future clash of interests in the Far East.

C. There are numerous indications that the large burden of armament is causing at least as great, if not greater, difficulty in the communist area as it is causing in the free area. The agreed easing of this burden, even though in a small degree, may have an appeal.

D. The steady expansion of United States air bases surrounding the Soviet appear to be causing an extreme psychological reaction. The halting of this expansion of United States bases should be attractive to the USSR.

E. A nuclear war of mutual destruction would be to the disadvantage of the USSR as well as of the United States.

F. If the Soviet rulers believe in the ultimate success of communism over capitalism without war, they may consider that there is an advantage in minimizing the danger of the early outbreak of war and settling down to a long-term competition of systems.

G. The USSR appears to be eager to expand trade and to be handicapped by the East-West trade controls. Broadened and beneficial trade would be facilitated by such a first phase agreement.

H. The USSR as well as the United States would presumably benefit from an improved attitude of world opinion following such an agreement.

IX. The Conditions for a Successful Agreement.

If an agreement is reached, its success will depend not only on its own terms and fulfillment, but even more upon the development of alternative methods of settling international disputes without resort to war.

A. Abstention from the use of force is a prerequisite for the realization of a lasting peace, notwithstanding any agreement for reduction of armament. The use of any degree of aggressive force will almost certainly rapidly lead up an escalator to the full use of all available knowledge of weapons of destruction, and this means nuclear war.

B. World government is not feasible or desirable as a method of settling issues without the use of force.

C. The alternative methods of peaceful settlement of international issues are direct negotiation, mediation, arbitration, and the court. Each of these methods needs strengthening, and each can be strengthened if a limited arms agreement improves the climate.

D. The mediation method may be especially worthwhile under these circumstances. A mediation panel under the United Nations, through which unusually able nationals of countries not involved in a dispute could concentrate for months or years on particular issues and mediate between the sovereign states, may yield large dividends.

E. In the wake of such an arms agreement, a more universal membership in the United Nations would be of great value in improving the prospects for peace. The log jam of non-members might well be broken in this arms agreement process.

F. The proposed policy is further designed to avoid raising a false sense of security and to place reliance on inspection and continuing mutual desirability, rather than on the duration or terms of the agreement.

G. The proposed agreement would shift the emphasis to an effort to end world wars, rather than an attempt to ban nuclear weapons.

X. Method of Seeking Agreement

The aims of this proposed policy are of such extreme importance and their relationship to the future prospects of peace and security for the United States are so vital that, if the policy is adopted, the method of seeking agreement should be approached with the most thorough preparation and minute care.

A. The preparation should center on the steps which will provide the best prospect of USSR concurrence, with appropriate consultation with the United Kingdom, other United States partners, and the United Nations.

B. This does not mean that the public appeal aspects of the situation is ignored. But the best public relations will flow from genuine negotiations on a realistic plan, rather than from unrealistic or over-dramatized presentations to the public.

C. Neither is the importance of the relations with the United Kingdom, France, Canada, the United Nations and other nations overlooked. But these also will best be served in the final analysis by a thorough approach to the USSR.

D. In exploratory bilateral conferences with the USSR, an endeavor would be made to clear away some of the underbrush of past unrealistic positions, to emphasize that one-sided agreement favorable to the Soviet is not a possibility, and to stir up thinking of mutual advantages in agreement.

1. So long as the Soviet rulers consider that there is a prospect of an arms agreement more to their advantage and to the disadvantage of the United States, they will not enter an agreement such as here proposed. If they consider that there is any chance of banning the bomb and throwing away United States superiority in this respect, they will enter into no other agreement. If they consider that there is any likelihood of a weak inspection clause which they could and would violate, no sound agreement can be made.

2. If they conclude that the Soviet system cannot survive an inspection arrangement, no agreement can be reached, as the United States must never limit arms on a basis of trust of the USSR.

E. Similar exploratory talks would be held with the United Kingdom, France, Canada, and possibly with Germany, India, Japan, Italy, Belgium, and others.

F. Concurrent with this process, a comprehensive program of bringing the basic facts involved in the issue to the people would be carried out.

1. A major worldwide program should be launched to develop understanding and conviction of the United States objective to prevent war and establish peace and that it is not possible or sound to ban modern weapons or to become weak when a diverse and evil ideology like communism is centered in a major nation.

G. These exploratory talks and exchanges would continue with the gradual development of the circumstances for the presentation of the plan. The best occasion for this would appear to be either the meeting of the Big Four, or the Secretary of State’s session with the Foreign Ministers in anticipation of or ensuing from the Big Four Conference.

H. At an appropriate stage in the consideration, presumably after the presentation of the plan to the Soviet, it is suggested that the President would make a full dress, personal presentation to the Congress, and the Secretary of State would follow with a speech to the United Nations.

I. It should be possible to develop thorough consideration by the USSR, and overwhelming free world public support at the same time, with constant focus on an actual, realistic agreement as the goal.

J. The United Nations Disarmament Commission may be utilized as a partially active parallel process, but unless the United Nations membership is expanded to include major centers of military power now excluded, the future consideration of disarmament of other nations after an initial agreement between the USSR, the United States, and the United Kingdom should be taken up in a world disarmament conference more comprehensive than the United Nations membership. Such a world disarmament conference should not be held unless a previous agreement has been reached between the principal powers.

XI Supplemental Proposals.

To make this plan more acceptable to those who have been thinking in terms of the banning of nuclear bombs, and a more far-reaching first phase reduction of arms, and also more palatable to the countries who would be left without a nuclear weapons production, the following two supplemental proposals could be made, although neither is an essential part of the first stage plan.

A. Declare that in furtherance of the United States policy announced by President Eisenhower on April 16, 1953,⁶ the savings realized by the United States under this stopping of the arms race would be used as follows:

1. First, to assure a balanced budget for the United States.

2. One-third of the remainder of the savings to be used for United States tax reduction.

3. One-third for expanded schools, hospitals, water development, highways, etc., in the United States.

4. One-third for accelerated peaceful development of other peoples for which any other peoples would be eligible and in which consumer goods and peaceful uses of atomic energy would be stressed.

B. The United States could further offer to supply, subject to Congressional approval, a very small quantity of atomic weapons for a United Nations police force, if the other nations decided to establish such a force exclusive of the United States and the USSR.

1. Such a small force, primarily equipped with conventional weapons, but with a very small nuclear capability, would help to avoid a sense of exclusion on the part of third nations, without involving either the United States or the USSR.

XII. The Special Staff.

A Special Staff has taken an extensive part in the preparation of this report, but they are not to be considered as individually responsible for any of the conclusions or recommendations, nor are the Departments or Agencies bound in any manner by their participation.

The members of the Special Staff are as follows:

• Edmund A. Gullion, Department of State
• Lawrence D. Weiler, Department of State
• Colonel R. B. Firehock, USA, Department of Defense
• Captain D. W. Gladney, USN, Department of Defense
• Colonel Benjamin G. Willis, USAF, Department of Defense
• McKay Donkin, Atomic Energy Commission
• Frederick Janney, Central Intelligence Agency
• Robert E. Matteson, Foreign Operations Administration
• John F. Lippmann, Foreign Operations Administration

It is suggested that this progress report be referred to the members of the National Security Council for their comment in meeting today to furnish guidance⁷ and that Departmental, Inter-Departmental, and Planning Board conferences, as appropriate, be held to explore all facets of the proposal, for a report back to the President at an early fixed date.

Respectfully submitted:

Harold E. Stassen⁸

1. Source: Eisenhower Library, Project Clean Up, Disarmament—Basic Papers. Top Secret; Eyes Only. Prepared by the Special Staff on Disarmament, signed by Stassen, and submitted to the National Security Council on May 26. The report comprised three parts: Volume I, printed here; Volume II, containing related and supporting documents for Volume I; and Volume III, consisting of reproductions of charts used in a May 26 presentation before the National Security Council. Volumes II and III are ibid. Regarding the NSC presentation, see infra.
2. Regarding NSC Action No. 1328, see footnote 22, Document 7.
3. For the Anglo-French proposal of April 19, 1955, see Documents on Disarmament, 1945–1959, vol. I, pp. 453–454.
4. For text of the Anglo-French proposal submitted to the U.N. Disarmament Subcommittee in London on June 11, 1954, and text of the Soviet draft resolution introduced in the General Assembly on September 30, 1954, see ibid., pp. 423–424 and 431–433, respectively.
5. See Document 24.
6. Reference is to Eisenhower’s address, “The Chance for Peace,” given before the American Society of Newspaper Editors, April 16, 1953. See Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1953, pp. 179–188.
7. The preceding six words in the source text were added in handwriting.
8. Printed from a copy that bears this typed signature.