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

91. Letter From the Representative at the United Nations (Lodge) to the President’s Special Assistant (Stassen)¹

New York, December 22, 1955.

Dear Harold: This relates to Volume V of your study of U.S. policy on disarmament² which I have just received.

I shall confine my comments to the implications of your suggested policy with regard to obtaining further U.N. endorsement of the Eisenhower policy—in the subcommittee, in the Disarmament Commission and in future General Assemblies.

The Tenth General Assembly has recently approved by an overwhelming majority (56–7) the US-UK-French-Canadian Resolution giving priority to President Eisenhower’s plan for aerial inspection and exchange of military blueprints,³ and it is instructive to see why it did so, as follows:

a. One fundamental factor was the great merit of the President’s plan itself, which was made particularly vivid by the Air Force exhibit across the street. But this alone would not have been enough. We were not in the situation which frequently arises in a national legislature in which the man who has a strong proposition merely insists on it and, because the proposition is so strong, eventually sees it prevail.

b. The large vote in the General Assembly was also due to our willingness to make mention in the resolution of other ideas—ideas which came from the United Kingdom, France, India and the Soviet Union. This resulted in a longer resolution which was somewhat cluttered up with verbiage, but the verbiage was harmless and brought us many votes.

c. The large vote was also due to the fact that we received Presidential approval to link some limited measure of disarmament with the “open sky” plan, as this was done in 1 and 11 of operative paragraph 1(b). This had the great advantage not only of bringing us enthusiastic Anglo-French support, but of completely nullifying the propaganda argument which the Russians had made that the United States was not interested in disarmament but only in inspection.

For the future I suggest that we show:

a. an equal willingness to accept other ideas provided they are harmless,

b. that we recognize that we cannot avoid discussions of such things as force levels, nuclear control and nuclear tests,

c. that when it is utterly unavoidable that the Soviets will bring something up that will be embarrassing to us, we take the initiative ourselves and make a proposal of our own wherein we can safeguard the vital essentials of our military position and preserve our diplomatic position from embarrassment.

d. I suggest further that when you are sitting in London or in New York in the Subcommittee that your decisions be backed up promptly. It is difficult for some officials in Washington to realize that in an international forum the United States does not control the procedure and that, therefore, we are confronted with decisions which often come at a time which we do not like. In a discussion among Americans it may often be easy to get a postponement for a week. This is not the case in international affairs, and our success in securing implementation of the President’s plan will be dependent in large measure on the extent and rapidity of your support from Washington in getting decisions for you.

e. You should be authorized to lift the “reservation” which we have placed on our previous policies, particularly with respect to reductions in conventional armaments, prohibition of nuclear weapons, reductions in nuclear weapons and the staging of a disarmament plan. I am aware of the considerations which led to the entering of this reserve, but we can get the same results without recourse to the “reserve” device which is so clumsy from a parliamentary viewpoint and so damaging to us in its cold war effects. The language which I used to meet criticism of it is, I think, the most effective that can be devised, but the “reserve” idea should be abandoned.

f. The Resolution adopted by the Political Committee requires us to consider now what concrete measures of disarmament we could really undertake under its operative paragraph 1 (ii): e.g., a census, or a “freeze”; regional reductions, token reductions, or some general pattern for the reduction of conventional armaments. I note that your Volume V anticipates “modest” reductions which would seem to be in line with the language in the Resolution.

g. We shall soon need a more definite policy with respect to prohibition of nuclear weapons. We have reiterated our stand for a general prohibition on use, except against aggression, but we will be under increasing pressure to say whether the United States is for or against prohibition of the nuclear weapon, even as an ultimate objective. Volume V does not seem to give an answer on this point.

h. Similarly, the paper is not clear with respect to our policy on the reduction of nuclear stockpiles. We cannot advantageously negotiate proposals in the United Nations which do not deal more directly with these points.

i. Your paper refers to the necessity for preventing a spreading of nuclear weapons capability to additional powers. But it is not clear what you would propose to prevent it. This idea has also been expressed in the Disarmament Commission and Political Committee meetings and, here too, a definite policy line would be useful.

j. During the debates, I said many times that the force of public opinion would eventually cause the Soviet Union to accept the Eisenhower plan, supplemented by the Bulganin proposals. But Volume V, suggesting that the ground observers might number from 20,000 to 30,000, far exceeds any expectation I had formed of the probable size of that supplement. Some of the representatives of other countries commended the Eisenhower–Bulganin plan on the grounds that it would not constitute so massive an invasion of sovereignty as earlier proposals for inspection had contemplated. I do not know whether the Defense Department could pare down its estimate but it would certainly be easier to negotiate on the basis of a more modest figure.

k. I believe that Kuznetsov⁴ was personally quite impressed with the shift in our position as epitomized in ii of operative paragraph 1 (b), and that you should take advantage of an opportunity when you meet the Russians to stress this point which brings the United States definitely nearer to what the Soviets said on May 10th that they wanted.

Volume V is, I assume, a preliminary outline, and more details will be supplied later. However, once debate in the United Nations gets beyond the broad concept such as the Eisenhower plan, it tends to center on the timing of arms reductions and of exchange of information and the relation between the two operations. I believe that our policy should be more precise on these points.

I understand that the next meeting of the Subcommittee of the Disarmament Commission⁵ will probably occur in February, probably in Europe. I believe our efforts in Washington might well be directed towards the points I have mentioned in this letter.

In the meantime, let me say how much I appreciate the complexity of your task, and all you are doing to cope with it.

Sincerely,

H.C. Lodge, Jr.

1. Source: Department of State, Disarmament Files: Lot 58 D 133, Disarmament Policy. Top Secret.
2. Volume V is printed as Document 82. Regarding Stassen’s report on Volume V, circulated December 16, see footnote 3, Document 89.
3. Regarding Resolution 914 (X), approved on December 16, see Document 88.
4. V.V. Kuznetsov, member of the Soviet Delegation to the Tenth Session of the U.N. General Assembly.
5. The words “United Nations” are crossed out and the words “Disarmament Commission” are inserted in handwriting on the source text.