267. Editorial Note
On March 16, 1963, Prime Minister Macmillan sent a 13-page letter to President Kennedy. Following a brief account of the status of a multilateral nuclear force for NATO, Macmillan provided a 10-page review of the test ban negotiations. This review included extensive summaries of the Soviet resumption of testing in the fall of 1961, the Bermuda announcement in December 1961, and several letters between President Kennedy and Prime Minister Macmillan and Khrushchev. He also described the “considerable progress” in the most recent negotiations, especially the Soviets’ public acceptance of the principle of on-site inspection and narrowing the differences on numbers per year to three by the Soviet Union and seven on the U.S. side, but cited the continuing “deadlock based upon the question of number.” Macmillan also included his analyses of Khrushchev’s thinking on the test ban issue, the dangers of proliferation, and the urgent need to seek simultaneously a non-dissemination agreement. (Department of State, Presidential Correspondence: Lot 66 D 204, Macmillan-Kennedy Correspondence, Vol. IV) See the Supplement.
In the last part of the letter, Macmillan suggested various options for pushing the negotiations forward toward an agreement.
“So we come to the problem of how we are to renew the negotiations with a view to bringing them to a satisfactory conclusion. Looking back to our declaration in 1962 I am bound to say that I feel myself under an obligation to act in accordance with what I then said. Certainly in my statement, which perhaps went further than yours, I undertook to do something about it in either of two situations, one of which is now approaching.
“There are various possibilities;
- “(a) I can see the disadvantage in merely offering five inspections through the Geneva negotiators with no certainty that this would be accepted. A rejection would be very bad politically for you, although not so much for me.
- “(b) I can see the dangers involved, although I think the advantages might well outweigh them, in simply suggesting that we all three should meet and try to settle the matter. If the West then offered five and Khrushchev stood out, our position might not be very dignified, but it would not be ignoble.
- “(c) We could summon a Conference on the understanding that the conditions of the inspections were first brought near to a conclusion, so that we should only have to settle the final steps to be taken on these together with the question of numbers. But it would still be a risk.
- “(d) Or, if it was better for you, I could write to you and Khrushchev either privately or publicly or both, suggesting that we should all meet at [Page 656] Geneva. If he refused, it would be a great disappointment and we should not get the agreement, but again it would not be discreditable.
- “(e) Before suggesting either jointly or separately a conference of the Heads of Governments, we might make some further soundings.
“In this connection, I still feel there is something queer about Khrushchev’s move towards accepting the principle of inspection. There may have been some genuine misunderstanding in his mind, or perhaps some misunderstanding or misrepresentation by those Russians who reported to him what they picked up in Geneva. Possibly therefore you could send some personal message to Khrushchev on this matter or perhaps some emissary such as Averell or even your brother Bobby who would both clear up any misunderstanding and find out whether there was a chance of settling round about five or by some juggling with the numbers, including the conception of bisques and the limit for any one year, coupled of course with what I think could be made very attractive to Khrushchev, the non-dissemination aspect.
“Some of my telegrams report that he is supposed to have lost interest in the nuclear test ban but if that is so, it may well be because he has not had the non-dissemination aspect sufficiently impressed upon him.
“I am sorry to inflict so long a letter on you, but I feel this very deep personal obligation upon me and it is one which in some form or another, I must discharge, before it is too late. I do not, as you know, want to trouble you on the telephone but I would be very glad to hear first from you either through David Gore or by teleprinter message, and then perhaps we could have a talk to clarify any outstanding points.”
Macmillan’s reference to “our declaration of 1962” presumably is to the joint statement from President Kennedy and Prime Minister Macmillan to Chairman Khrushchev, April 9, 1962. His recollection of “my statement” presumably refers to Macmillan’s message to Khrushchev, April 10, 1962. See Document 170.
Macmillan’s letter was sent to Ambassador David Ormsby Gore for delivery to the President. Ormsby Gore presumably left the letter at the White House with Carl Kaysen in the absence of the President and McGeorge Bundy, who were away from the White House March 15-20. Kaysen forwarded a copy of this letter under cover of a March 19 memorandum to Acting Secretary of State Ball. According to this memorandum, Ormsby Gore intended to deliver some additional oral comments on this letter personally to the President and was tentatively scheduled to meet with him on the morning of March 21. (Department of State, Presidential Correspondence: Lot 66 D 204, Macmillan-Kennedy Correspondence, Vol. IV) The Ambassador met off the record with the President on March 21 from 12:07 to 12:40 p.m. (Kennedy Library, President’s Appointment Books)