Attached is a proposed memorandum to the President drafted to carry out the
decisions you made at our Saturday meeting.2 The memorandum and its enclosure have been cleared
with EUR.
At the risk of sounding like a stuck whistle and at the risk of overloading
even your magnificent quality of patience, I can’t help but say that I
believe this course of action would be a mistake. Myron Kratzer of the AEC, who has just returned from intensive
technical consultations in the FRG, is of
the view that a safeguards article along the lines we have been previously
discussing could be agreed on with the FRG
if we took care of certain of their objections.3
I have attached a safeguards article which I would recommend. It contains
three changes helpful to the FRG. The new
draft makes clear
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that there is
the same substantial transition period for all undertakings in the article.
The provision relating to safeguards on the exports of non-nuclear materials
or equipment makes it clear that it is only the fissionable material
produced with these items, and not the items themselves, which are subject
to safeguards. And there is a statement that the purpose of the article is
to prevent diversion of materials to nuclear weapons development or
manufacture. These last two changes could be quite helpful to gain FRG assent since the FRG has feared that the present article might be a basis for
communist espionage or for interference in peaceful industrial endeavors.
Mr. Kratzer also believes the FRG can be satisfied that they will not have to
accept Soviet inspectors from the IAEA by
getting the FRG to understand that this is
the case under the present IAEA rules,
provided this interpretation is given them in writing and we assure them of
our support in case their rejection of Soviet inspectors is challenged in
the IAEA.
I have discussed this matter with Mr. Leddy and he does not agree with the views expressed in this
memorandum except that he does agree with the Memorandum to the
President.
Attachment 26
MEMORANDUM FOR THE PRESIDENT
SUBJECT
- Non-Proliferation Negotiations
We are now entering a new phase in our consultations with our allies on
non-proliferation. Bill Foster
will be visiting key European capitals—Bonn, Rome, The Hague, and
Brussels—during the next two weeks to further clarify questions that
have been asked about the treaty draft, and hopefully to convince key
leaders that their legitimate concerns are or will be taken care of.
We will also consult with the Japanese and Canadians here in
Washington—though their concerns are in some instances different than
those of our other allies.
As part of the consultation process we have already given key allies an
Oral Note which includes draft Summary of Interpretations of the present
treaty text,7 which we would propose to show the
Soviets after this phase of allied consultation, but before a treaty
text is actually tabled in Geneva. We have also given our allies a
fuller version of the treaty text. This version is complete except for
Article III, dealing with safeguards, the text of which is still under
consideration. This Article will be considered as part of new
consultations.
It is my hope that these new consultations would end in a meeting of the
North Atlantic Council, held as soon as possible after Mr. Foster’s trip. At the Council meeting
we will seek a “no objections” agreement to the U.S. and Soviet
Co-Chairmen tabling a joint draft in Geneva which would be recommended
by the two governments for consideration by the Conference.
The problems which will be dealt with during these talks fall into three
general areas:
The first relates to the development of an acceptable Article dealing
with safeguards. The second relates to the manner in which we make it
clear that the non-proliferation treaty will not prevent the creation of
a federated European state. The third relates to a variety of other
problems,
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some dealing with
NATO security arrangements but more
dealing with problems of national competition in the field of peaceful
nuclear energy.
I.
I am attaching as Tab A a draft revision of
Article III which, in accordance with our discussions of a few days ago,
specifies the possibility of IAEA
verification of Euratom
safeguards.8 The
revised draft contains changes which should be helpful to our
allies.
The key question with respect to the handling of this proposed revision
relates to the timing of the discussions of this revised Article III
with our allies. In view of the strong feelings of our Euratom allies on this subject, I would
propose that ideas in the revised Article III be discussed by Bill
Foster with our allies on his
forthcoming trip. I would hope that one of them can be persuaded to
sponsor the text of a revised Article III as its own; I have either the
Federal Republic of Germany or Belgium particularly in mind for this
purpose.
It is not at all certain, however, that an Article of this kind will be
negotiable with the USSR because, among
other reasons, of the implied blessing they might feel that it gives
Euratom. I am particularly
anxious to avoid a situation in which we lose a month or so of valuable
time, or having agreed with our allies with an Article III which the
Soviets reject, find ourselves under increasing pressure from both
allies and Soviets to drop the safeguards article. To initiate Soviet
consideration of this approach I am instructing Bill Foster to indicate the concept, but not
the details, of this particular solution to his Soviet counterpart
before he leaves Geneva. At the same time the allies should be advised
that if the revised Article III should prove non-negotiable with the
Soviets, it would not mean that we would lose interest in the subject of
safeguards, but we would be considering other approaches, including
those along the lines of the original Article III that has been the
subject of our recent consultation.
It would help overcome some allied fears that safeguards would hinder
peaceful nuclear programs and involve risk of industrial espionage, if
we would indicate at a propitious time that we are considering an offer
to invite IAEA to apply safeguards on a
broad scale to U.S. peaceful nuclear facilities at such a time as IAEA safeguards are applied to non-nuclear
weapons states. In concert with the AEC,
I have instituted a program of consultations with key Congressional
leaders on this point. The initial reaction has been favorable, but I
will let you know when we have carried this program somewhat
further.
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II.
With respect to the federated Europe problem, the objective which we can
realistically hope to achieve is Soviet silence, or non-contradiction,
when our allies and later the United States, assert that the treaty
would not bar succession by a new federated European state to the
nuclear status of one of its former components. We cannot realistically
expect the Soviets to say that they have agreed to the creation of such
a new federated European state since they would have political
objections to such a merger which transcend the problems of
non-proliferation, but we can expect them not to assert that this treaty
bars a federated Europe with nuclear weapon capabilities.
The Oral Note which we have given key allies contains a number of our
interpretations dealing with the effect of the treaty. One of them,
dealing with the problem of European unity, states that the draft
treaty:
“... does not deal with the problem of European unity, and would
not bar succession by a new federated European state to the
nuclear status of one of its former components. A new federated
European state would have to control all of its external
security functions including defense and all foreign policy
matters relating to external security, but would not have to be
so centralised as to assume all governmental functions. It would
bar, however, transfer (including ownership) of nuclear weapons
or control over them to a new multilateral or other entity
lacking the attributes of a federated state essential to bring
into play the legal doctrine of succession.”
This is based on the principle that the treaty deals only with what is
prohibited. We will state that this is what we have told our allies,
that this is what we will be required to state in our Congress and if
they publicly contradict us, by stating that the Treaty prohibits a
federated Europe succeeding to nuclear assets of component states, such
contradictions would undoubtedly result in the collapse of the
Treaty.
III.
With respect to the other articles of the treaty we would anticipate that
the Oral Note Ambassador McGhee
gave Kiesinger on February 22
will meet most German requirements. There are various other German
concerns and requests; some of these we can probably meet although some
of them, such as the request for a U.S.-German treaty assuring the
Federal Republic of continued American supplies of fissionable material,
special nuclear guarantees beyond our commitments involved in NATO, and veto rights on the use of U.S.
nuclear weapons deployed on German territory, we cannot meet in the
context of the negotiations on the draft text to be tabled in the ENDC. We can at this time tell the Germans
that we are prepared to discuss the question of assuring the continued
supply of fissionable materials—though not in treaty form. We
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should also tell them that we
are prepared to work out veto arrangements similar to those we have with
some of our other NATO allies. We do
not believe we can or should give any encouragement to their request for
further security guarantees. A favorable response to the first two
requests may prove to be strong inducements for German support for the
Treaty.
In any event, resolution of most of the additional points the Germans
wish to discuss need not be obtained before tabling the draft treaty but
rather would have to be resolved before the Germans were faced with the
question of ratifying a final text. What we will need to nail down with
the Germans in order to obtain their “no objection” to our tabling a
draft will be the questions of the text of Article III and whether the
interpretations of the treaty which we have given them are satisfactory.
We therefore will seek an early German response on these points.
I believe that the question of whether the Italians can be persuaded to
acquiesce in the “no objection” formula will be in large part dependent
upon whether we have the Germans on board at that time. The Italians are
less likely to object if, at the time of the NAC discussions, they are the only holdouts. A letter from
me to Fanfani might be in order
and perhaps one from you to the Prime Minister.
