Foreign Relations of the United States, 1958–1960, Volume III, National Security Policy; Arms Control and Disarmament, Microfiche Supplement

499. Memorandum From Coolidge to Herter¹

September 29, 1959

Pursuant to the terms of reference establishing the Joint Disarmament Study, you have requested my advice on the merits of the proposal that nuclear weapons be completely eliminated.

A. The proposal has impressive merits:

(1) It has an enormous emotional and, therefore, political appeal. The threat of annihilation by nuclear warfare is removed, not only for the people of the United States but for the people of many other nations.

(2) The proposal practically eliminates the dangers of surprise intercontinental attack and of accidental war. These dangers are bad enough at the present and will get worse as ICBMs replace bombers.

(3) The proposal would mean that the homeland of the United States would be comparatively safe, so the great productive superiority of the United States over the Soviet Union could be brought to bear to win World War III as it did in World Wars I and II.

(4) The proposal has considerable logic. The Soviets have been ahead right along in the conventional arms race. They are on the point of catching up and for a time will probably be ahead of us in the nuclear race, as they get ICBMs in quantity before we do. It makes no sense to insist on being behind in two races. Rather it is logical to call off one race and to concentrate on at least drawing even in the other race. We can draw even in the conventional race by building up our conventional capability and that of our Allies to equal the Soviet capability, or by equalizing conventional capability by agreement with or without a UN police force. In this connection it should be noted that an equal number of men for the Soviet Bloc and NATO would give the Soviets a great advantage because of their geographical situation, their spartan standards and their tighter command.

(5) The elimination of nuclear weapons might well stimulate our NATO Allies to increase their efforts in conventional forces, commensurate with the improvement in their economic situation which has occurred since the early days of NATO, though it is possible that NATO might collapse once the umbrella of our nuclear capability is removed.

(6) The elimination of nuclear weapons accompanied by the limitation of other arms would meet the Soviet condition of total disarmament, when they have said there will be no block to complete freedom to inspect within the Soviet Union.

(7) The proposal would force us to give up our reliance on tactical nuclear weapons, which is becoming an increasingly ineffective deterrent to local wars.

(8) Obviously, much money would be saved in the discontinuance of the expensive production, research and development of nuclear weapons and the expense of accomplishing the necessary hardening, dispersal, mobility, etc. of our nuclear retaliatory force to meet the Soviet ICBM threat. But this saving might prove non-existent for a period, in view of the necessary changes in our armed forces outlined in B 3) below.

(9) The proposal is broad and comparatively simple in concept and is thus less likely to become bogged down than are minor measures.

B. In spite of its impressive advantages, this proposal has a number of serious disadvantages:

1) Such technical information as is available to me is to the effect that, while it is possible to devise a system which will detect the diversion of significant amounts of nuclear material produced in the future from peaceful purposes to weapons, it is not possible to devise a system which will monitor the liquidation of the existing stockpiles of nuclear weapons or materials with sufficient reliability to prevent the concealment of a sufficient number of nuclear weapons to be decisive in the outcome of a major war. Perhaps a new study could develop an adequate system, but considering the vast wastes of Russia and its Satellites (let alone Red China), the probability does not look bright. Considering the continued production of plutonium by “Atoms for Peace” reactors and the continued production of delivery vehicles in the Outer Space program, the problems these two inspection systems must overcome are indeed formidable. Incidentally these factors mean that the elimination of nuclear weapons by the “have” nations would have only a marginal effect in preventing the spread of such a capability to the “have not” nations, unless all nations similarly agreed.

2) Unless inspection is essentially airtight, the risk to the security of the United States is great, because even 100 clandestine ICBMs of high yield would be a most serious threat. Theoretically this could be offset by depositing with the UN a substantial quantity of nuclear weapons for release on the discovery of the existence of clandestine missiles in the hands of the Soviets. But realistically the time necessary to obtain the release of the UN missiles might be fatal to us and the UN missiles would probably be the first target of the Soviets’ missiles. Further if such a deposit was made for release to us, a similar deposit would have to be made for release to the Soviets and there would be danger that the Soviets would seize and fire that deposit, so that they would not even need clandestine missiles.

3) The abolition of nuclear weapons would require replacing most of our air force and navy, and the rearming of our ground forces, since our planes, vessels and ground force armaments are all designed for nuclear weapons and would be highly inefficient without them. This would produce a serious gap in our defense posture and would probably cost so much as to more than offset the saving outlined in A(8) above.

4) With the nuclear deterrent removed, the size of small wars might well tend to increase. Also the tendency to start a large war would be greater.

5) Onece a large war started, all bets would be off, and with the material and vehicles at hand, it would not take the Soviets or ourselves long to manufacture a substantial number of nuclear ICBMs, so that all our efforts to eliminate nuclear weapons would have been largely in vain.

6) The loss of nuclear capability by us would create a serious danger in the Far Fast. Conventional air attacks by Red China on Formosa would be difficult to prevent. Even if the Red Chinese could be confined to the mainland, it would be most difficult to stop them from taking over all of South East Asia.

7) An airtight inspection of us might be unacceptable from the point of view of domestic politics and security.

8) In view of the improbability of technical experts being able to come up with an inspection system which would satisfy us, to make this proposal the core of the United States position on disarmament would expose us to the accusation that we were merely making a play for publicity and had no intention of going through with it. This in the long run would do us more harm than letting the Soviets get away with their present favorable publicity.

C. Is the proposal “jumping out the window for fear of falling out”, as one military man has put it, or is it a wise and major step forward—assuming of course a favorable report by the experts? It depends on whether the risks to the United States security are substantially greater under the proposal than if we rely on mutual deterrence with such minor disarmament measures, if any, as are possible to attain. Unless the risks are substantially greater, we should obviously adopt the proposal in view of its many desirable features.

I cannot pose as an expert in balancing these risks, but it seems to me that the risks of the proposal are substantially greater. Perhaps, if the Soviets alone were involved, it might be wise to go ahead with the proposal, but with Red China in the picture there are just too many possibilities of a slip up through sabotage or otherwise, in the complicated international machinery we would have to setup to police both nuclear and conventional arms control, for me to bring myself to believe that it is wise to surrender all our nuclear capability at this time. Attempting to set the clock back is fraught with too many uncertainties. It seems to me the best we can do is to put it up to the Soviets to devise an adequate inspection system for detecting breaches of an agreement to eliminate nuclear weapons and indicate an open mind on the possibility of their ultimate elimination.

While I have consulted my staff on the general proposition of eliminating nuclear weapons and believe that the consensus of their opinions does not differ materially from the foregoing, this memorandum expresses my own personal views.

Charles A. Coolidge

1. Source: Elimination of nuclear weapons. Secret. 4 pp. Eisenhower Library, Whitman File, Administration Series, Coolidge, Charles A.