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

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

Washington, June 23, 1955.

VOLUME IV²

Special Staff Study for the President

NSC Action No. 1328³

NSC Action No. 1411⁴

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, the Secretary of Defense, and the National Security Council.

The “Progress Report” dated May 26, 1955, has been studied in consultation with the participating departments and agencies,⁵ and this further report is submitted in accordance with NSC Action No. 1411.

I

A. There is general agreement within the participating departments and agencies that the proposed new policy on the question of disarmament is preferable to the existing policy, which has become outmoded through the advance in nuclear science and does not now serve the security interests of the United States, and which is not conducive to developing public support for United States policies.

B. There is broad agreement among the participating departments and agencies upon the major premises and principles set forth in Volume I of the Progress Report as a basis for the proposed United States policy.

C. The proposed first phase plan has been modified and refined to take into account in part the views and suggestions of the participating departments and agencies.

D. The following questions reflect partial differences of view and remain for decision by the President, or for continuing study, as may be deemed appropriate. Recommended answers are proposed in Section V.

1. Would the security interests of the United States be best served under present world conditions by a continuation of the armament program without any agreed limitation of any kind, or by an agreement such as outlined in the proposed first stage plan?

2. Should a first phase plan include some definite reduction in nuclear and conventional armaments from their present levels?

3. Should a first phase plan in its initial step include Communist China, or can this inclusion be deferred until the major China political issues are resolved?

4. Should some distant prospect of complete elimination of nuclear weapons be held out notwithstanding agreed impossibility of security in such elimination?

5. Should some features be added to the first phase plan which would increase its attraction to the USSR and improve the chance of agreement?

II

A. It is recommended that the proposed United States policy on the question of disarmament, including the first phase plan as revised and modified, be given limited approval at this time by the President for the purpose of consultation without commitment with the Governments of the United Kingdom, France, and Canada (the free nation members of the United Nations Subcommittee on Disarmament), and that the Special Assistant be directed to report back to the President and the National Security Council on the results of such consultations for further consideration of the policy and the plan in the light of the views of these Governments and having due regard for any further study brought forward by any of the participating departments and agencies of the United States Government.

B. It is recommended that the Special Assistant be directed to carry on these consultations under the direction of the Secretary of State, and be further directed to carry forward a broad program of public information on the fundamental premises and principles involved, emphasizing the objective of peace, and in accordance with established guidelines of the Operations Coordinating Board, utilizing as appropriate and feasible the total facilities of the United States Government.

III

The first phase plan has been modified and refined to take into account in part the views and suggestions of the participating departments and agencies. Endeavor to negotiate a convention with the USSR and other major nations such as the preliminary draft submitted, designed to accomplish the following:

A. Improve the prospects for future peace and security for the United States through stopping the competitive buildup of armaments—leveling off total armament efforts—including nuclear, bacterial, chemical, and conventional—by all major nations at an early fixed date.

1. This leveling off to include:

a. The cessation of all nuclear production, except such supervised nuclear production as is incidental to the peaceful use of nuclear energy for power or research, and except such supervised nuclear production as may be subsequently required to provide essential nuclear material for peaceful purposes.

b. The cessation of all fabrication of nuclear weapons.

c. Limiting production of conventional weapons to production for replacement only, such replacement to be accomplished by category, rather than piece for piece, and to be under agreed criteria permitting a progressive modernization within an agreed time scale but should not be used to transform the power relationships existing between signators to the agreement.

d. No further expansion of foreign bases.

e. No expansion of foreign stationed forces.

f. No increase in armament budgets.

g. No addition to para-military forces.

h. No build-up of armament production facilities.

2. Establish minimum levels for German and Japanese armament, to which, but not beyond which, these states would be permitted to build, notwithstanding the general worldwide leveling off.

B. Require all signators to disclose on parallel dates, in stages, beginning with less sensitive categories, their existing armaments, armed forces, military appropriations and expenditures, and armament production facilities, and to permit verification of such disclosures by an International Armaments Commission within the limitations of Section III, J–4.

C. Stop all nuclear weapons testing as of the same fixed date the competitive armaments build-up is stopped.

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

E. Grant to those parties which have in being nuclear weapons and production facilities for nuclear weapons material the right to open the agreement to renegotiation at any time on six months notice specifying unsatisfactory developments.

F. 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 specifying unsatisfactory developments, but otherwise the agreement to continue in full force and effect upon such signators without the right of withdrawal.

G. In the event of a serious violation of the agreement confirmed as such by the International Armaments Commission, grant to all signators the right to terminate by renunciation without advance notice.

1. Further grant to each signator the right to file with the International Armaments Commission a specific claim of violation of the agreement by any other signator, and to take counterbalancing steps to maintain relative position including steps which would otherwise be in violation of the agreement, provided, however, that the International Armaments Commission shall be notified of such counterbalancing steps when they are taken.

H. 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 and other relevant provisions of the Charter and in particular Article 51 on individual or collective self-defense.

I. Provide that all available nuclear material not included in weapons shall be strictly and effectively controlled and shall be placed in stockpiles for peaceful uses owned by the country of source but safeguarded by being stored under such conditions as to render immediate use for weapons impossible but use for civilian purposes feasible, and such stockpiles to be supervised through a certified warehouse technique by the International Armaments Commission so devised as to be certain that the location and use of such material shall be fully known by the International Armaments Commission.

1. This supervised stockpile system to be established in such a manner that, granted the successful functioning of the arms agreement as a whole, and the resolution of major outstanding policy issues, and thus the establishment of the circumstances for the reduction of existing nuclear weapons, such reduction might take place through the future deposit of increments of nuclear material removed from weapons.

2. Such supervised stockpile shall also receive and account for any future nuclear material production, including production in civil reactors, permitted under the control of the International Armaments Commission as required for peaceful uses.

J. In order to insure faithful performance of the above measures, establish an International Armaments Commission with the right to observe and inspect by land, sea, or air with the aid of radar, sonic devices, photographic equipment, radiation detection and measurement instruments, and other scientific instruments, all existing armaments, and armed forces, and any geographic area, and to communicate its observations to an international center outside the country being inspected, without interference.

1. Such inspection service to be in place and ready to function on the date fixed for the stabilization of arms and to be a condition precedent.

2. 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.

3. During the period of stabilization and pending any reduction phase to take place subsequently, the inspection service of the Commission would be directed primarily to the prevention of surprise attack and aggression and to prevention of significant expansion of arms and armed forces in violation of the agreement. Its functions would include the following:

a. To detect and warn against significant conversion of industry and transport to warlike purposes; mobilization for surprise attack, and undue and threatening troop or weapons concentrations; movement of arms, armaments and armed forces in violation of the agreement; changes in allocation between peacetime and warlike uses of such key resources as steel, electric power, aluminum, chemicals.

b. Inspection of production of important categories of conventional weapons.

c. Inspection and verification of limitations on, and disposition of, conventional means for the delivery of nuclear attack.

d. Verification of budgets, appropriations and expenditures.

e. Verification that production of weapons in agreed categories was for replacements only.

f. Inspection of ports, railroad junctions, airdromes, highways.

g. Supervision of peaceful uses of nuclear material to guard against illicit diversions.

h. Policing of moratorium on nuclear weapons testing.

i. Supervision and inspection of stockpiles for deposit of nuclear material.

4. In the first phase plan, inspection would not include the right to examine or copy nuclear weapons design, nor thermonuclear processes, nor the design and detail of other weapons.

IV

A. The United States to make it clear that this first phase plan is considered by the United States as the prelude to the negotiation of agreement for future reduction in the present level of armed forces and armaments, conventional and nuclear, but that the United States does not anticipate that any appreciable reduction from present levels can be contemplated unless and until the major political issues causing international tensions are resolved, such as the divided states of Germany, China, Korea, Vietnam; foreign nationals held in prisons; interference by international subversive organizations; and other violations of international rights and agreements.

B. The United States to further make it clear that if such other issues causing international tension are resolved, and if the first phase plan is successfully and faithfully implemented, the United States anticipates agreement to proceed from the first phase (the opening up and leveling off of armaments) to further phases of pulling back and reducing both conventional and nuclear armaments. This process would proceed toward ultimate levels such as those discussed for conventional armament in the British and French, USSR and United States exchanges in London, and for nuclear armament to levels which, on the one hand, would deter aggression by any nation, but on the other hand, would not threaten the survival of any major nation.

C. In the circumstances indicated in paragraphs A and B, the United States would consider the progressive reduction of nuclear weapons to be accomplished by depositing them in the internationally supervised stockpiles as described in Section III above. This would be accomplished by feeding the nuclear weapons (either complete or separated into nuclear and non-nuclear components) into those stockpiles.

V

It is respectfully suggested that the unresolved questions should be decided as follows:

1. Would the security interests of the United States be best served under present world conditions by a continuation of the armament program without any agreed limitation of any kind, or by an agreement such as outlined in the proposed first stage plan?

The projected future capability of the USSR to launch a devastating surprise nuclear attack upon the United States is so adverse to United States security interests that a limitation agreement such as proposed would be clearly preferable in the United States national interest. It would improve the prospects for a lasting peace, with security, freedom, and economic well-being.

2. Should a first phase plan include some definite reduction in nuclear and conventional armaments from their present levels?

The major issues such as Germany and China are of such magnitude, the circumstances of communist methods and objectives are so adverse, and the strategic position of the USSR and Communist China in the Eurasian land mass is so important, that no significant reduction in present armament levels of the United States should be contemplated in a first phase—even though it is matched by a USSR reduction.

3. Should a first phase plan in its initial step include Communist China, or can this inclusion be deferred until the major China political issues are resolved?

Communist China would not constitute a major threat to the basic security of the United States for a period of years, and therefore the inclusion in the initial step should not be a condition precedent, even though desirable. In any political settlement of outstanding issues with Communist China, however, agreement to join any existing international limitation of armaments should be included as a condition.

4. Should some distant prospect of complete elimination of nuclear weapons be held out notwithstanding agreed impossibility of security in such elimination?

The development of public understanding and support for United States policy can only come about through forthright information on the impossibility of secure elimination of nuclear weapons. Such information cannot be effectively disseminated if accompanied with an unsound reference to a distant prospect of complete elimination of nuclear weapons. Such a course plays into the communist “ban the bomb” propaganda. Furthermore, so long as the USSR considers that there is any chance of getting United States agreement on future elimination of nuclear weapons, it is unlikely to agree to a sound and secure arrangement which includes the retention of a nuclear weapons capability.

5. Should some features be added to the first phase plan which would increase its attraction to the USSR and improve the chance of agreement?

The United States should not sacrifice its present relative position of strength for agreement, and, therefore, should not add special concessions to the USSR. Unless there is a genuine mutual desire to level off and limit armaments on the part of the USSR, it is preferable to United States security interests that there be no agreement.

Harold E. Stassen⁶

1. Source: Department of State, Disarmament Files: Lot 58 D 133, Disarmament Policy. Top Secret. Attached to the source text is a memorandum from Lay to the NSC, June 23, indicating that the enclosed Volume IV of the Progress Report would be considered at the NSC meeting on June 30.
2. Volume I of the Progress Report is printed as Document 33. Regarding Volumes II and III, see footnote 1 thereto.
3. Regarding NSC Action No. 1328, see footnote 22, Document 7.
4. Regarding NSC Action No. 1411, see footnote 3, Document 34.
5. Regarding consultations between Stassen and the participating agencies and departments, see footnote 6, Document 34.

6. Printed from a copy that bears this typed signature.

   Documentation on the response to Volume IV follows. Additional documentation is in Department of State, Disarmament Files: Lot 58 D 133, Disarmament Policy; ibid., Meetings of the Special Staff; and ibid., Meeting of the Planning Board.