217. Memorandum from Barnett to Sullivan, July 301
SUBJECT
- Duncan Wilson’s Report on Moscow Test Ban Negotiations
Duncan Wilson, Superintending Under-Secretary, Northern Department, Foreign Office, and I were colleagues at Bob Bowie’s Harvard Center in 1959–60, where we both worked on aspects of Communist China, his mainly economic and mine mainly military and nuclear.
Wilson invited me to spend July 28 with him in the country. He was quite frank in what he had to say about what happened.
Mr. Wilson said that the Soviet motive in bringing the negotiations to a successful conclusion was one part anxiety about the Chinese, one part desire for budgetary savings, and one part real desire for relaxation of East-West tension.
He said that he understood Moscow’s intention to be to get all of the Communist Bloc countries to sign the agreement thereby advertising to the world Peking’s isolation.
Lord Hailsham went to Moscow with hardly more than a couple of hours of briefing. His indifference to the need for preparation dismayed both Wilson and Trevelyan. Solly Zuckerman’s views were often helpful, but he supported them with weak political, rather than the stronger scientific arguments for which he had some authority.
Throughout, Hailsham was deplorably “elephantine” and it took all of the efforts of his delegation, Wilson said, to neutralize his amateurism.
In contrast to the modest preparations of the small U.K. delegation, the U.S. delegation had, it appeared, concentrated on talks for all of the preceding full month. The delegation itself, moreover, was formidably effective. Fisher and McNaughton were both experienced treaty draftsmen.
Carl Kaysen, by virtue of his position in the White House, brought to the conversations something which the U.K. delegation could not match. Bill Tyler’s knowledge of the whole range of European and Soviet affairs was also invaluable.
[Facsimile Page 2] [Typeset Page 621]London had understood that Governor Harriman would be accompanied by a small team and planned accordingly. It was stunned by the power of Governor Harriman’s team.
Governor Harriman’s conduct at the negotiations was impressive. Throughout, he was master of the discussions, handling the talks with correctness and force. His restraint concealed a capacity for toughness and even anger. With his knowledge of the Russian, the Chinese, the European, the American and the strictly nuclear elements in the problem at hand, Harriman, according to Wilson, was the great man of the meeting.
Notwithstanding the admiration he expressed for Governor Harriman, Wilson said that he had to admit that Gromyko’s performance was the most “professional”.
- Duncan Wilson’s report on Moscow test ban negotiations. No classification marking. 2 pp. Kennedy Library, National Security Files, Departments and Agencies Series, ACDA, Disarmament, Test Ban–General.↩