352. Memorandum From Bromley Smith to Gray1

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SUBJECT

  • Disarmament Working Group Meeting

The Disarmament Working Group met this morning to review the State and Defense proposals for revision of the U.S. position regarding the suspension of nuclear tests, as stated in para. 8 of the first phase of disarmament.

State presented a draft (copy attached). Defense presented a revision of its earlier draft (copy attached). AEC representatives did not attend because they were engaged in attempting to reach agreement on an AEC draft revision.

The Defense Department has reorganized its proposal in such a way that the Working Group was unable to marry the State and Defense drafts using either brackets or parallel columns. Thus it will be necessary to prepare an additional paper summarizing the policy differences between the two drafts.

In summary, the major differences in the proposed revisions are as follows:

a.
State rejects the Defense concept of agreeing to refrain from such nuclear weapons testing as can be monitored by the agreed inspection system. State believes we should refrain from testing if we obtain agreement for the installation of an “effective international system of inspection”.
b.
State rejects the Defense provision (8–a–(3)) which would add as a condition to acceptance of the suspension of testing an agreement to cooperate in the design of an effective international inspection system to monitor the cessation of the production of nuclear materials for weapons purposes, and to seek agreement on the installation and operation of such a system. State believes the Defense condition is so close to existing policy that to make an offer to suspend testing on this basis would be inadequate to meet the political situation. State would introduce the concept of arrangements for the cut-off of production of nuclear materials for weapons purposes as one of the conditions to agreement to refrain indefinitely from nuclear tests at the termination of the 24-month period.
c.
Defense has deleted from its draft the State provision which would permit the continuation, under international auspices, of nuclear explosions for peaceful purposes.

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The Defense representative, General Byers, appeared to agree, during the course of the meeting, to present both State and Defense drafts to the Joint Chiefs formally so that work could be started in the Joint Staff on the JCS views.

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The Group discussed the extraordinary complexity of attempting to deal with the question of “peaceful uses” of nuclear dynamite. Dr. Killian’s representative called attention to the fact that the atomic exhibit to be opened in Geneva this summer would include a section on the peaceful uses of atomic energy. He restated the Geneva scientists view that an effort to distinguish between peaceful explosions and weapons tests had not been discussed, and would be practically impossible to accomplish under any kind of a monitoring system.

The discussion also made clear that the system being devised in Geneva will not work if stations are not established in Communist China. If other states will not accept monitoring stations in their territory, the number of stations in the USSR and in the U.S. will have to be greatly increased if the system is to have a significant capability.

As far as I could learn, the State Department has not attempted to list the policy issues involved in a decision to modify existing policy on nuclear testing. There was some feeling expressed by the State representative that Dr. Killian’s points, as summarized during Wednesday’s meeting, were so broad as to involve issues which need not be decided immediately.

Bromley Smith
  1. Source: Record of the Disarmament Working Group meeting. Secret. 2 pp. Eisenhower Library, White House Office Files, Project Clean Up, Suspension of Nuclear Testing.