407. Letter From Eisenhower to Macmillan1
I have now had an opportunity to think about your letter on our position in the Geneva nuclear test negotiations and to discuss it with some of my advisors.
We have considered the course of the negotiations to date as well as the points you set forth and we are prepared to drop our insistence that any agreement we may reach with the Russians have in it an explicit requirement that cessation of nuclear tests depend on disarmament progress. I agree with you that to a certain extent this link is an academic one since, as you point out, the central issue is whether we now have an opportunity to get the Russians to accept a real control system. Certainly, if the Russians were to accept the kind of controls which we both believe are necessary, this very fact would mean that one of the principal bars to future progress in disarmament would have been removed. This is a point we might well make in explaining our attitude on this question.
Although, on the basis of the progress to date, it seems to me that the prospects are not bright that the Russians will accept an effective control organization in the current negotiations, I agree that our public position would be much better if we remove as a point of contention the issue of the link to disarmament, which the Russians may use as a screen to evade accepting responsibility for failure in the negotiations or to evade facing up to the control problem.
I believe that we can propose in the negotiations that we accept as a principle that the ban on weapons tests would be indefinite in duration. The arrangement, we believe, should include schedules for the construction and operation of the control system. Withdrawal from or suspension of the treaty would be possible if on annual review it were found that the control system was not being installed on schedule or not being [Facsimile Page 2] operated properly. If desirable, we will agree to the first annual review being held two years after the treaty enters into force; thereafter, the review automatically would be on an annual basis.
Obstruction or violation of the agreement itself would, of course, be cause for withdrawal.
[Typeset Page 1527]I believe that it would be unwise to give this change in position any undue publicity by making it the subject of a public announcement at this time. However, I believe that we should in the negotiations exploit our flexibility on this question every way possible to put pressure on the other side to make concessions.
I have requested Foster to discuss with your people how best to put forward this position in the negotiations.
As ever,
- Source: Agrees to drop linkage of cessation of nuclear testing to progress on disarmament. Secret. 2 pp. NARA, RG 59, Presidential Correspondence: Lot 66 D 204, Eisenhower to Macmillan.↩