This point was discussed, I think, subsequently by the Ambassador and Mr.
McGeorge Bundy.3 In
addition, the Minister of State, who has been attending the recent
disarmament talks, has talked about it to Mr. Arthur Dean, and gave him copies of a memorandum dated
February 3 drawn up by Sir Michael Wright, which
illustrates some of our ideas.4 Since then the Ambassador has prepared a further
memorandum on this question, and I have been instructed by the Foreign
Office to put this to you as representing some first thoughts so that your
experts may take it also into account in developing your own ideas. I
enclose two copies.
In view of the importance which both the Prime Minister and the President
attach to the presentation of a modified proposal to the Russians at Geneva,
I hope it will be possible now to work something out very soon.
I am sending a copy of this letter, with the Ambassador’s memorandum, to Mr.
McGeorge Bundy.
Enclosure
Washington,
March 1,
1962.
Memorandum by the British Ambassador (Ormsby Gore)
NUCLEAR TEST BAN TREATY
The President has now indicated that he would like to present a modified
test ban treaty when the Geneva conference meets on March 14. He would
not want to add control provisions to guard against preparations for
testing in this context.
I suggest that to meet the present requirements a modified treaty should
be based on two criteria. First of all, it should look like an offer
which world opinion would regard as reasonable and capable of acceptance
by the Soviet Union if they had any serious intention of reaching an
agreement. Secondly, it should be a treaty which, in the unlikely event
of the Soviets agreeing to it, we and the United States could live
with.
In the time available before March 14 I cannot see how we and the
Americans could hope to work out a complete draft treaty based upon some
new set of principles. In addition, it might be a bad precedent to
abandon at this stage the experts’ report of 1958 when we have gone on
record with the view that the best method of proceeding in the
disarmament field is to get the experts to solve the technical problems
involved and then to translate their findings into a political
agreement.
In these circumstances, what modification to the April 1961 treaty could
we offer which would look like a genuine attempt to reach agreement with
the Russians? One way I suggest would be to meet, so far as is possible,
all the major Russian objections which they originally advanced against
the United States-United Kingdom proposals of last April. The major
points of difference between the two sides were really four: the length
of the moratorium, the single administrator, the number of control posts
and the quota of inspections. I do not think that at this stage it is
worth bothering about the minor differences on criteria for inspections,
on the division of contributions to the budget, etc., as these make no
impact on the public and could certainly be resolved if the major
differences had been removed.
I therefore take the four major points of difference in order and suggest
how we might alter the draft treaty in order to meet the Russian
objections to the maximum extent.
Length of Moratorium
The best solution would be to do away with the moratorium altogether and
make the treaty comprehensive from the date of signature.
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We were already prepared to
accept a 3-year moratorium on underground testing so that the additional
risk we might run applies only to the subsequent years, and my
impression is that scientific opinion would now support the thesis that
small clandestine underground tests, if they were possible, could not
significantly alter the present balance of nuclear power. If however it
is thought undesirable to drop the whole idea of a moratorium on
underground tests for a fixed period, then we might accept the Russian
proposal for a 5-year moratorium. Here again the additional risk of
clandestine tests giving the Russians a significant military advantage
seems to me to be acceptable. In this case, therefore, we would either
meet or better Soviet demands.
A Single Administrator
Here we can obviously not accept the Soviet demand for a troika but we
might put forward a proposal which precisely followed the arrangements
that the Russians agreed to in respect of the Acting Secretary-General
of the United Nations. These arrangements were accepted by the Russians
as recently as last October and it would be distinctly awkward for them
to oppose such arrangements without exposing themselves to the charge of
inconsistency and even implied criticism of U
Thant’s impartiality which would go down very badly with
all the neutral countries.
Number of Control Posts
We have proposed 19 for the U.S.S.R.,
and the latter have insisted on no more than 15. We were in fact
prepared to go down to a figure of 17. It is of course possible, by
juggling the grid proposed by the experts, to increase or decrease the
number of posts within the borders of the U.S.S.R. If such juggling can really produce a figure as
low as 15, I think we should accept it. The effectiveness of the control
system is not going to turn on whether there are 17 posts within the
Soviet Union or 15 posts within and 2 just over the border outside. Here
again, if we agree to 15 control posts we shall have met the Russian
demands one hundred per cent.
Quota of Inspections
Here we are wide apart. We claim 20 inspections per year, the Russians
offer 3. I suggest that we accept 3 veto-free inspections a year and
then add some such proviso as the following:—
“Should the quota of veto-free inspections have been exhausted
and a further seismic event take place on the territories of any
party that meets the criteria for an unidentified event which
might be suspected of being a nuclear explosion, then any party
to the treaty may request a further inspection, such a request
not to be unreasonably refused. The unreasonable refusal by any
party of such requests shall constitute a breach of Article 2 of
this treaty.”
[Page 355]
This proposal would look to the general public very like
an acceptance of the Russian offer of 3 inspections a year, since I
doubt whether they would be very much concerned with the small print. On
the other hand it could be shown that in practice this proposal would
enable us to do all the inspections we wanted, even up to the figure of
20 per year. If the Russians refused our reasonable requests for
inspections above the quota of 3, we could then withdraw from our
obligations under the treaty. I think we in the U.K. have always felt that if the Russians signed such a
treaty the chances are that they would probably abide by it; but if they
did cheat, as I have indicated earlier, the carrying out of some small
undetectable underground tests could hardly affect the nuclear balance
in the world.
A variation of this proposal would be to suggest a quota of 5 veto-free
inspections a year. This would still look like a very reasonable offer
to the rest of the world.
To sum up, I think we should base ourselves upon the treaty into which we
have put three years of work, but as regards the four most important
points in our draft treaty to which the Soviet Union took exception last
year, we should in two of the cases meet them one hundred per cent. In
one case we would look as though we had met them one hundred per cent,
and in the fourth case over the Administrator we would be making an
offer which would seem reasonable to the vast majority of nations and
which it would be difficult for the Russians to argue against. Such a
treaty offer would have a very considerable impact on world opinion and
in the unlikely event of the Russians agreeing to it, I believe it would
be defensible on scientific grounds and would constitute a minimal risk
to Western security.
