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

518. Note From Calhoun to Goodpaster¹

Washington, January 18, 1960

Enclosed is a copy of Selwyn Lloyd’s letter of January 14, 1960 to the Secretary and a copy of the covering letter addressed to Livingston T. Merchant by Ambassador Hood.

Enclosure

Covering Letter From Head to Merchant

Washington, January 15, 1960

My dear Livie

I have received the enclosed message for Mr. Herter from Mr. Lloyd in reply to Mr. Dillon’s letter of January 6 about the Nuclear Tests Conference.

As I know that the Secretary is still away I am sending the message to you so that you can give it preliminary consideration in anticipation of his return,

Yours [illegible in the original]

[illegible in the original]

Sammy
(Hood)

Enclosure

Letter From Lloyd to Herter

January 14, 1960

TEXT OF MESSAGE

Dear Chris,

I was most grateful for Doug Dillon’s letter of January 6 outlining your ideas on how we should proceed in the Nuclear Test Conference. I am sending this reply to you as he is now in Paris.

To deal with a lesser point first, I agree that no useful purpose would be served by attempting to reconvene the technical working group at present.

On the major point, I also agree with you that if we have not succeeded in getting the Russians to budge from the position they took up in the technical conference before Christmas, we have little chance of securing a treaty under which a ban on all tests would be effectively policed from the outset. Clearly a limited treaty which goes beyond what you contemplated last April by banning at least certain underground tests is an advance on what you then had in mind, and to that extent we welcome your idea. As a result of the agreed technical report of last summer I imagine you would also be prepared to include a ban on high-altitude tests. Furthermore your proposal to define a threshold in terms of seismic magnitude rather than in kiloton yield strikes me as ingenious. It will, as you say, eliminate a lot of argument and should I think put the Russians in a somewhat difficult position. After their argument that a seismic magnitude of 4.75 represents the equivalent of a yield of 1.7 kt, the acceptance of your proposal, if you should choose the figure of 4.75, will mean that the Russians are being offered what on their own figures they should admit is nearly a comprehensive treaty, whatever our own reservations on this particular magnitude.

Nevertheless, I am firmly convinced that the Russians (who are quite capable of instructing their scientists to make a volte face to agree with you that a seismic magnitude of 4.75 is, after all, the equivalent to a yield of 20 kt) will not look at any proposal that does not ban all tests, at least temporarily. If we were to insist on a treaty which left open the possibility of underground testing below a specified magnitude, I think the Russians would break off negotiations. What is more, they would proclaim vociferously that they had broken on a Western proposal which they would represent as showing the West to be insincere in its protestations of a desire to stop all tests. They would say that they were being asked to accept a considerable measure of control on Russian territory at great cost, while the Western Powers continued to develop their nuclear weapon potential by underground testing. I am afraid that the odium for failure to reach an agreement would thus fall on the West. Unjust though this would be, I do not think that in the present state of world opinion, particularly as manifested in the last session of the General Assembly, we can afford to allow this to happen. I know full well that the underground tests which under your proposal would still be permissible contribute nothing to fallout, but I am afraid this argument carries little weight with the large numbers who believe all nuclear tests should now cease.

There is a further consideration. The Russians have declared that they will not be the first to resume tests. If, however, some underground testing remained permissible and the Western Powers decided to resume tests, then it is certain that the Russians would follow suit, and I doubt whether they would confine themselves to underground tests. I have explained to you before now my fear that even in that case much of the odium would fall on whatever power had been the first to resume tests of any kind. But quite apart from that: are we really sure that it is we rather than the Russians who stand to gain more in military terms from a further round of testing? The indications are that, for us the improvement to be derived from further testing may be marginal. If, as we believe, we are at present ahead of the Russians, would they not be likely to diminish our lead if we gave them the chance to resume testing? These considerations, together with others familiar to you, persuade me that it is much in our interest, in spite of all the scientific difficulties, to come to some arrangement with the Russians under which all tests should cease.

As you know, when the President first advanced your proposal for a limited treaty last April, the Prime Minister told him that he thought it would be necessary to offer a moratorium on underground tests for one or two years. The President did not feel able to accept such a suggestion then, but the Prime Minister said he might have to revert to the proposal. Under the terms of your new suggestion it would be appropriate to change the Prime Minister’s original suggestion to one for a moratorium for a limited period on underground tests below the nominated threshold. I assume that all tests in other environments would be completely banned, provided the treaty obligations were being fulfilled. We would maintain the important distinction of principle that the permanent ban would apply only where we could be assured of effective control; while there would be no more than a temporary suspension where such control was not yet possible.

I am convinced that such a suggestion for a moratorium will in the end have to be added to your proposal, and would ask you most earnestly to consider whether you could not accept it at the outset; we have after all now had a totally uncontrolled moratorium for some fourteen months; and even if there had been no scientific reassessment and we had proceeded to an agreement entirely on the basis of the experts’ report of 1958, we should have had to contemplate a period of two or three years, while control posts were built and the control system was being organised, when there would have been a virtually uncontrolled moratorium. I do not believe we should lose very much by voluntarily subscribing to a moratorium for underground tests below the threshold if we could get agreement to your new proposal. We could then, as Dillon in his letter says you contemplate, propose a joint programme of research with the Russians to speed up progress in seismology.

As I have said above, I believe that, if we do not proceed on these lines, we shall get no treaty. I think such a result would be disastrous. Not only should we lose the opportunity to get for the first time international controls operating in the Soviet Union, thus serving as a precedent for subsequent disarmament controls, but also, I fear, the prospects of success at the Ten Power Disarmament Conference would be very gravely prejudiced.

I apologise for the length of this letter.

With best wishes,

Yours sincerely,

Selwyn

1. Source: Transmits letter from Lloyd to Herter on position on nuclear test talks. Secret. 8 pp. Eisenhower Library, White House Office Files, Project Clean Up, State Mepco Cables.