Office of the Historian

67. Memorandum From Jan Lodal of the National Security Council Staff and the Counselor of the Department of State (Sonnenfeldt) to Secretary of State Kissinger1

Washington, August 5, 1974.

SUBJECT

  • PNE Talks with the Soviets

The Soviets have followed up your latest conversation with Dobrynin with a note which addresses the PNE negotiations called for by Article III of the TTB (Tab A). The basic purpose of those negotiations is to work out a bilateral agreement which will provide for verifying the yield of PNEs off weapons test sites and, if possible, for verifying that PNEs over the 150 KT threshold are not weapons related.

The Soviet note proposes:

—PNE negotiations beginning in late September in Moscow;

—Holding the negotiations at the Stoessel-Morokhov level, as with the TTB;

—Discussing, simultaneously with the TTB/PNE negotiations, other aspects of PNEs such as those related to the NPT.

Timing

We should have no problem being prepared for PNE negotiations in late September. The Verification Panel Working Group is addressing the various issues which need to be decided prior to the talks (e.g., what PNE safeguards should we seek, relation of PNE provisions in the TTB-related agreement to NPT and LTBT). This work will be ready in time for a Verification Panel Meeting early in September.

Level

It would be desirable for us to have someone other than Morokhov—the head of the Soviet PNE program—leading the Soviet side. The [Page 213] only logical alternative to the ad hoc Stoessel-Morokhov arrangement is to hold the talks in the context of the IAEA, which is taking the lead in international supervision of PNE services. Unfortunately, Morokhov is also the Soviet representative to the IAEA and would undoubtedly also lead the Soviet side in that context. We are inclined therefore to acquiesce in the Stoessel-Morokhov channel as the Soviets have proposed.

Relation to the LTBT and NPT

On June 7, Dobrynin handed you a note (Tab B) proposing bilateral negotiations to reach a coordinated U.S.-Soviet position on providing PNE services to non-nuclear weapons states in accordance with Article V of the NPT. The Soviets proposed that these talks take place a month or two before the November IAEA Conference on PNEs (now actually scheduled for January 1975). The Tab A note now proposes to hold these NPT related talks as part of the TTB follow-on negotiations.

This connection is in our interest. The Soviets will be more interested in the “permissive” aspects of the PNE problem—how to legitimize an active PNE program in the face of LTBT constraints on venting and nonproliferation concerns which have been exacerbated by India’s nascent “PNE” program. For our part, our interests are mainly restrictive—to put conditions and curbs on PNEs so they will not offer a means of circumventing the TTB. Thus, by conducting the two sets of talks in parallel, we can exert some leverage in gaining Soviet responsiveness to our verification concerns.

Response to the Soviet Note

We will send you a proposed reply later this month. This will allow us to see how the Verification Panel studies are progressing and whether any issues have been identified which warrant alterations in the course of action proposed by the Soviets.

  1. Summary: Lodal and Sonnenfeldt reviewed a Soviet proposal to begin negotiations in late September on nuclear explosions for peaceful purposes. They noted the timing and level of the negotiations, in addition to the relationship between the proposed negotiations and the Limited Test Ban Treaty and the Nonproliferation Treaty, adding that they would send Kissinger a proposed reply to the Soviets later that month.

    Source: National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, NSC Files, Box 366, Subject Files, Peaceful Nuclear Explosions (PNE) (8/68–8/74). Secret; Completely Outside the System. A notation in an unknown hand reads: “Bud—FYI (Gen S./HAK have original).” Tab A, a Soviet paper entitled “Schedule for Negotiations on the Realization of the Agreements and Understandings Reached at the Soviet-American Summit Meeting,” which Vorontosov sent to Eagleburger under a July 25 cover note, is attached but not published. Tab B, a June 7 note from Dobrynin to Kissinger, is not attached.

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