60. Memorandum from Ball to President Kennedy, October 121

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SUBJECT

  • Memorandum to You from Ambassador Stevenson on Nuclear Testing and the United Nations.

On Wednesday, October 11, the Secretary sent to you for your approval a memorandum entitled “US Position for the General Assembly on the Nuclear Test Ban” which represented the economists on this issue of the Committee of Principals which met Tuesday evening.

Ambassador Stevenson is now aware of the views of the Committee of Principals. He has asked that we forward to you the attached memo[Typeset Page 175]randum in which he accepts those views and urgently recommends that either you or he make an immediate statement offering to sign the present draft treaty on nuclear testing, or to return now to the negotiating talks.

I concur in Ambassador Stevenson’s recommendation which I believe, as he points out, would be helpful in our efforts to maximize acceptance of our views in the test ban issue in the United Nations.

George W. Ball
Acting Secretary
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Attachment

SUBJECT

  • Nuclear Testing and the United Nations

1. Last Saturday I sent to the White House and the State Department a proposed Presidential statement in which you would have invited the Soviet Union, first, immediately to discontinue all nuclear testing, and, second, to conclude within thirty days a treaty prohibiting all nuclear weapons tests. You would state at same time that the U.S. was going to prepare for atmospheric testing, and if your offer was not accepted within one week, the U.S. would be obliged to start testing when ready.

2. At a meeting in Washington Tuesday, the Committee of Principals decided against using this approach and also against taking any initiative to renew the Kennedy-MacMillan proposal that fall-out testing be banned.

3. On behalf of all the agencies concerned, the Secretary of State has now recommended a new policy under which we would continue to be willing to negotiate a treaty for a controlled test ban, whether for all types of tests or for atmospheric tests only, but in view of the Soviet test series we would not agree to a moratorium on testing during the period of negotiations.

4. I am told that at the meeting of the Committee of Principals it was the consensus that preparations should be made for atmospheric testing, but that such tests could not take place for several months. The proposal that we test in the atmosphere almost at once, for demonstration rather than technical purposes, was rejected—thank god!

5. I think that one more “last chance” challenge to negotiate a treaty within 30 days, with a joint test suspension during that limited period only, would be extremely useful in dealing here with the enthusiasm for the Indian proposal (to ban all tests, with no controls) and with [Typeset Page 176] the skepticism about the U.S.-U.K. resolution (to negotiate forthwith a treaty along the lines of our Geneva draft).

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6. However, I am not questioning the decision taken in Washington this week. What I do urgently recommend is an immediate statement from you or me offering to sign the present draft treaty or to return now to the negotiation table, either in Geneva or perhaps right here in New York. We would make clear that we were making preparations for further tests of our own; express our regret that Soviet actions make them necessary, as a matter of national security; and agree to stop as soon as a treaty is signed.

7. I am not proposing that we should stop our preparations for testing in the atmosphere. I think we should be completely frank in stating that these preparations are going forward. Indeed, the preparations may themselves serve as some incentive toward getting the Soviets back into negotiations. But since we cannot usefully test in the atmosphere for several months, I think we have everything to gain and nothing to lose by using the intervening time to conduct our educational campaign that stresses (a) our willingness to conclude a treaty, (b) Soviet obstruction and duplicity, and (c) the contrast between Soviet unconcern about the dangers of fall-out tests and U.S. reluctance to follow suit.

8. In summary, these are the reasons why I think a new offer to negotiate a treaty would prove useful:

(a) It will be a further boost for the disarmament initiative you took in your great speech here in the UN and it will show that the United States is supremely desirous of putting an end to nuclear weapons testing, with all its health hazards, its implications in terms of ever more destructive weapons, and its general exacerbating effect on international tensions.

(b) The offer would give us something other than a purely negative line to use as a basis for combating proposals for an uncontrolled, uninspected and unlimited test moratorium. While the present position that test cessation is possible only under a treaty with controls is thoroughly reasonable, it commands indifferent support in the General Assembly. Ninety-six of the 100 members of the UN are innocent bystanders in the nuclear arms race. Fearing that the health and safety of their peoples are jeopardised by continued testing, they are not interested in the rights and wrongs of the situation, or in who tested first. They will make a passionate appeal that the tests be stopped. If we must test for security reasons, it would help to dramatize the earnestness of our effort to avoid test resumption before we reached the point of no return.

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(c) Our offer should win votes for our resolution and will moderate criticism we will certainly get for not agreeing to an Indian-type resolu[Typeset Page 177]tion. More than that, it will improve our standing with respect to other major political issues about to come up in the General Assembly. I need mention only the Chinese representation problem, the problem of the Secretary-General, and, if it comes into the UN, the problem of Berlin. In dealing with those difficult matters, it is surely best for us to appear as an earnest seeker of ways to diminish tensions.

(d) The renewed offer would focus attention on and dramatize our advocacy of a full nuclear test ban treaty with controls; it would greatly assist the process of public education we had intended in any event to carry out here at the UN.

9. In your press conference yesterday, you did indicate U.S. willingness to negotiate for a test ban treaty, and your conviction that a “moratorium” during negotiations is no longer an acceptable procedure as far as the United States is concerned. But the “news” in your statement was the possibility of atmospheric testing. My suggestion for a formal renewal of our treaty offer is to get the public’s attention focussed once again on our desire to negotiate so as to stop tests, rather than on the melancholy necessity to continue them.

10. If you prefer to say no more on this subject, I would welcome your authorization to make a statement here, within a very few days, along the lines suggested in this memorandum. One way or the other, a formal U.S. announcement should be made very soon, before the Soviets complete their present test series.

Adlai E. Stevenson
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Attachment

DRAFT STATEMENT BY THE PRESIDENT

Since the Soviet Union resumed nuclear weapons testing in the atmosphere on September 2, it has detonated more than twenty fallout producing nuclear devices. Some of these devices have released energy equivalent to millions of tons of TNT.

The Soviet test series threatens to intensify competition in the development of more and more deadly nuclear weapons. Thus these tests increase the possibility of ultimate disaster for all mankind.

There is only one safe and sure way to stop nuclear weapons tests and to stop them quickly. That is to complete a treaty prohibiting all nuclear weapons tests under effective controls.

In the last two years the negotiations at Geneva made significant progress toward such a treaty. The United States stands ready to resume these negotiations for such a treaty today. It will devote all its resources to the quickest possible conclusion of these negotiations. If the Soviet Union would do the same, there is no reason why a nuclear test ban treaty with effective controls cannot be signed within thirty days.

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My negotiators are ready now to sit down at the table with Soviet and British representatives for this purpose. Until there is a treaty and tests can be stopped, the United States, as a responsible nation, must prepare and take the actions that may be necessary to protect its own security and that of the world community.

  1. Transmits October 12 memorandum from Stevenson outlining strategy on handling the nuclear testing issue at the U.N. Attached to Stevenson memorandum is a proposed Presidential statement. Confidential. 5 pp. Department of State, Central Files, 700.5611/10–1261.