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

523. Message From Ormsby-Gore to Herter¹

January 29, 1960

Text of Message to Mr. Herter from Secretary of State

Thank you for your letter of January 23 about the Nuclear Tests Conference. Sir Michael Wright has now sent me the gist of your instructions to Ambassador Wadsworth.

I feel bound to tell you that we seem to differ considerably in our assessment of the situation.

To begin with, we believe that any proposal to the Russians which would permit the holding of tests below a given threshold would be totally unacceptable to them. If we insisted on this solution we think it might lead them to break off the negotiations. You take a different view. It has of course been a cardinal point of our public position from the outset that we could not agree to any cessation of tests which could not be effectively controlled. But Tsarapkin has repeatedly told us in Geneva that the Russians are not interested in a negotiation which will not bring about the end of all tests. Khrushchev too has emphasized this repeatedly and I believe he means it.

Now, as I understand it, the guidance which you have sent to Ambassador Wadsworth on what he should say about tests below the threshold and at high altitude does not go beyond what you say in your letter to me. On past form I think it all too likely that the Russians will concentrate their attack on these apparent gaps in your proposals. I confess that we are not at all clear here about what precisely you have in mind on high altitude tests and tests in deep space. I am sure you will be asked at a very early stage whether you intend to start testing above a certain height, or whether you accept the report of the first technical working group, and its implications for the Treaty. On tests below the threshold you appear to rest on a statement on the lines of that which the President made on December 28 last. I am sure that this will be twisted by the Russians to imply that you have never paid more than lip service to the goal of the cessation of all tests. In short, I greatly fear that by concentrating on what you do not say and ignoring the specific proposals you put forward, the Russians will make great propaganda capital of the new move you suggest, whether or not they decide to break off negotiations altogether. They will be the better able to do this since your new proposals do not carry with them the alternative attached to the President’s proposals of last April that we would still be willing to try to negotiate a comprehensive Treaty to cover all tests.

You say further that if the West should quite legitimately resume underground tests below the nominated threshold, and if the Russians were then to follow with atmospheric tests, as in my view they almost certainly would, you consider the odium would attach only to the Russians. I wish I could agree. However unpleasant the fact it would, I am sure, be generally held that the West had given the Russians the pretext for resuming and I am convinced that world opinion at large, which gets quickly agitated about fallout, would place the blame on the West. However clear it was that the Russians were causing the fallout, it would nevertheless be generally represented and believed that it was Western action that had brought this about.

You may be under the impression that my suggestion of a temporary moratorium on tests below the threshold represents a retreat from our insistence that any cessation of tests should be effectively controlled. This is not the case. What I had in mind was not a cessation of tests below the threshold but only a suspension of specified duration. We would aim during that period, as you suggest, at a programme of joint research with the Russians to lower the threshold. My suggestion does not imply an indefinite suspension of tests below whatever lower threshold we might in the meantime have achieved. This I think would preserve the principle. I also had it in mind that in proposing a moratorium we should ask the Russians to accept some degree of inspection of events below the threshold. I do not think the Russians could reject this out of hand. Even partial control on this kind of basis would improve our position.

In commenting on my suggestion that we should incorporate a moratorium you say you think that we have perhaps been overly generous already. I do not think we need reproach ourselves with excessive generosity over the moratorium that has existed so far. After all, we accepted a time lag of this kind in good faith and with our eyes open when we took the decision to enter into negotiations in October 1958. And if we assume, as all the indications suggest, that the Russians have held no further tests since November 1958, I do not think our generosity has cost us much.

As you know, we believe that this negotiation over nuclear tests will vitally affect the future course of events in the whole field of disarmament measures. If we fail to get agreement with the Russians in the Nuclear Tests Conference I think the prospects of reaching any form of agreement with them in the Ten Power Disarmament Committee are negligible.

There is a further point. We are as worried as you over the possibility of the spread of nuclear weapons to other countries. A number of countries are certainly contemplating a nuclear weapons programme, and I am sure the only hope of restraining them is an agreement, to which they themselves could subscribe, which will persuade them that no one beyond the present nuclear powers in which I would now include France is going to be able to develop weapons. Development entails testing and therefore agreement on the controlled cessation of tests seems to us the quickest and most effective way of discouraging any other powers from starting on this vast enterprise.

I am extremely doubtful, as I have said before, whether we shall get agreement with the Russians unless they are convinced that we are not going to continue any form of tests. It seems to me to be well worth giving an undertaking of limited duration to suspend those tests we cannot yet control and then using that time to devise controls that will be effective over the whole spectrum. If we succeed in this, we shall have won a tremendous prize for we shall have got the Russians for the first time to accept international control on their own soil.

I ask you therefore most earnestly to consider whether you can add to the instructions you have already sent to Ambassador Wadsworth a proposal that there should be a suspension of tests of limited duration in the uncontrolled environments. These would then be progressively reduced until we have comprehensive controlled cessation.

1. Source: Disagrees with threshold proposal for nuclear test talks. Confidential. 4 pp. NARA, RG 59, Presidential Correspondence: Lot 66 D 204, U.K. Officials Correspondence with Secretary Herter.