Office of the Historian

41. Memorandum From the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the Secretary of Defense (Wilson)1

Washington, June 27, 1955.

SUBJECT

  • U.S. Policy on Control of Armaments
1.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff submit herewith their views regarding Volume IV of the “Progress Report on Proposed Policy of the United States on the Question of Disarmament”,2 prepared by the Special Assistant to the President for consideration by the National Security Council on Thursday, 30 June 1955. The Joint Chiefs of Staff submitted their views regarding Volumes I, II, and III of the Report in their memorandum to you, dated 16 June 1955,3 subject, “Progress Report on the Control of Armaments Made to the President and the National Security Council by the Special Assistant to the President on 26 May 1955.”
2.
Volume IV contains a partial revision of Volume I of the Progress Report and is responsive to NSC Action 1411, which directs that Mr. Stassen submit on 1 July 1955 “… a further report in the light of the views of the departments and agencies, indicating therein the extent of agreement within the Executive Branch and the specific areas, if any, of continuing differences of views with the precise description of such differences.”4
3.
The statement contained in Section IA of Volume IV to the effect that “There is general agreement within the participating departments and agencies that the proposed new policy … is preferable to the existing policy,” does not accurately reflect the views of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. While the Joint Chiefs of Staff remarked upon certain favorable features of the Plan, these remarks, in the over-all context of their comments, should not be interpreted as favoring the proposed new policy as opposed to the existing policy.
4.

In their memorandum of 16 June, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in addition to general comments on the Progress Report, set forth what they considered to be certain weaknesses in the First Phase Plan proposed therein. An examination of the First Phase Plan as now [Page 135] modified (Sections III and IV, Volume IV) indicates that certain of these criticisms have been taken into account. With regard to these, the Plan now:

a.
Makes special provision for the raising of German and Japanese forces;
b.
Amplifies upon the intended meaning of the phrase “leveling off of armaments” and the intended scope of international inspection;
c.
In addition to providing the right of renunciation, provides the right of a signator to take unilaterally certain counterbalancing actions in event of violation of agreements by another party has occurred; and
d.
Indicates in broad outline the subsequent steps which might be proposed by the United States in the direction of reducing both conventional and nuclear armaments following (1) the successful completion of the First Phase and (2) the resolution of issues causing international tension.

However, the Plan does not make the elimination of the more fundamental causes of world tension a prerequisite to the “leveling off of armaments” nor does it establish as essential the early participation of Communist China—features which the Joint Chiefs of Staff consider to be basic weaknesses of far-reaching implications.

5.
In addition to their comments on specific features of the Plan, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in their memorandum of 16 June, also made comments of a more general nature regarding the Progress Report in its entirety. The Joint Chiefs of Staff consider these still to be generally applicable to the Report with its modified First Phase Plan.
6.
Due to time limitations, the Joint Chiefs of Staff have not had the opportunity to analyze in detail all of the military implications and feasibilities of the Plan, as modified. However, they adhere to the view that an armaments control arrangement, to be negotiated and implemented under the given condition of Soviet bad faith, leaving other major issues for subsequent and independent negotiation, holds inherent risks to United States security interests. They consider that the First Phase Plan, as modified, would not diminish those risks and is therefore not suitable as a United States proposal for control of armaments or as a basis for the United States position in international discussions on this subject.
For the Joint Chiefs of Staff:
Arthur Radford
Chairman
  1. Source: Eisenhower Library, Staff Secretary Records. Top Secret.↩
  2. Supra.↩
  3. For text of Volume I, see Document 33. Volumes II and III are not printed. (Eisenhower Library, Project Clean Up, Disarmament—Basic Papers)↩
  4. All ellipses in this document are in the source text. Regarding NSC Action No. 1411, see footnote 3, Document 34.↩