Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, Volume E–14, Part 2, Documents on Arms Control and Nonproliferation, 1973–1976

70. Telegram 12630 From the Embassy in the Soviet Union to the Department of State¹

Moscow, August 17, 1974, 1246Z.

12630. Subj: Pravda on Complete Ban on Underground Nuclear Testing.

1. Summary. Soviet press is engaged in a fairly sizeable campaign on behalf of Brezhnev’s July 21 proposals for denuclearization of the Mediterranean and for an agreement on a complete ban on underground nuclear testing. The Mediterranean proposal received extended puffery in Pravda August 14 and Izvestiya August 16. And, in the weightiest commentary so far, “A. Platonov” sets out the importance of U.S.-Soviet agreement on a comprehensive test ban. The Platonov piece appears to add nothing new to the Soviet position; it may be intended mainly to serve notice on the new American President that a complete ban on underground testing is high on the list of Soviet arms control priorities. End summary.

2. “A. Platonov” is a pseudonym which in the past, we have suspected, concealed the identity of the Soviet chief SALT negotiator, V.S. Semenov. Platonov begins this time by tracing the history of Soviet interest in a CTB, noting that it was only the intractability of Western governments which prevented its being achieved in 1963. He then pays homage to Soviet realism in accepting partial measures, and launches into a description of the treaty on underground testing achieved at the 1974 summit. Perhaps of special interest for the USSR’s future negotiating positions is the emphasis the writer puts on national technical means of verification.

3. Platonov sees two major points of significance in the Threshold Test Ban Treaty signed July 3. First, as a clear ban on the testing of powerful nuclear devices it is important not just in the test ban field but also for the limitation of strategic weaponry in general. Second, the treaty is an important measure leading toward a complete test ban. It is this that the rest of the article is about.

4. Platonov emphasizes the importance of a new comprehensive bilateral agreement which would replace the current partial agreement. He quotes liberally from Brezhnev’s June 14 and July 21 speeches on the Soviet position favoring such an agreement, and says that world opinion—as well as some U.S. lawmakers—share the same views. Because of the constructive Soviet position on this, as well as the declared intention of the U.S. and Soviet Union to continue negotiations, “it can be considered that the time will come when agreement on this problem too will become possible.” Article closes with the assertion that it is important not to close off possibility of peaceful uses of energy from underground explosions and with a reference to Soviet-U.S. agreement to consider this question separately.

5. Comment. Platonov article does not seem to add anything substantive to the Soviet position on a comprehensive test ban. It continues to limit discussion of a complete underground ban to the bilateral U.S.–USSR context, with no reference to the other nuclear powers. Conceivably Platonov’s reference (in two places) to bilateral agreement to continue negotiations towards a comprehensive underground agreement may foreshadow a Soviet initiative to get such talks moving, but he cites no time frame and speaks with no special sense of urgency. Despite its inference that only the USSR is really interested in a comprehensive test ban, the article is not critical of the U.S. In addition to its usefulness as a standard build-up for a Soviet position, it may be intended to focus the test ban issue as a Soviet priority for the benefit of the new U.S. administration.

Stoessel

1. Summary: The Embassy reported that a Pravda commentary underscored the importance of a U.S.-Soviet agreement on a comprehensive test ban treaty, suggesting that the piece “may be intended mainly to serve notice on the new American President that a complete ban on underground testing is high on the list of Soviet arms control priorities.”

   Source: National Archives, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy File, D740227–0331. Limited Official Use. Repeated information to the consulate in Leningrad, the Mission to NATO, the U.S. delegation to the SALT II talks in Geneva, the Mission in Geneva, and the Mission to the IAEA at Vienna. Brezhnev made the proposals for denuclearization of the Mediterranean and for an agreement on a complete ban on underground nuclear testing in a July 21 foreign policy address in Warsaw. (New York Times, July 22, 1975, p. 17)