Preface

The Foreign Relations of the United States series presents the official documentary historical record of major foreign policy decisions and significant diplomatic activity of the United States Government. The Historian of the Department of State is charged with the responsibility for the preparation of the Foreign Relations series. The staff of the Office of the Historian, Bureau of Public Affairs, under the direction of the General Editor of the Foreign Relations series, plans, researches, compiles, and edits the volumes in the series. Secretary of State Frank B. Kellogg first promulgated official regulations codifying specific standards for the selection and editing of documents for the series on March 26, 1925. These regulations, with minor modifications, guided the series through 1991.

Public Law 102–138, the Foreign Relations Authorization Act, which was signed by President George H.W. Bush on October 28, 1991, established a new statutory charter for the preparation of the series. Section 198 of P.L. 102–138 added a new Title IV to the Department of State’s Basic Authorities Act of 1956 (22 U.S.C. 4351, et seq.).

This statute requires that the Foreign Relations series be a thorough, accurate, and reliable record of major United States foreign policy decisions and significant United States diplomatic activity. The volumes of the series should include all records needed to provide comprehensive documentation of major foreign policy decisions and actions of the United States Government. The statute also confirms the editing principles established by Secretary Kellogg: the Foreign Relations series is guided by the principles of historical objectivity and accuracy; records should not be altered or deletions made without indicating in the published text that a deletion has been made; the published record should omit no facts that were of major importance in reaching a decision; and nothing should be omitted for the purposes of concealing a defect in policy. The statute also requires that the Foreign Relations series be published not more than 30 years after the events recorded. The editors are convinced that this volume meets all regulatory, statutory, and scholarly standards of selection and editing.

Structure and Scope of the Foreign Relations Series

This electronic-only volume is part of a subseries of volumes of the Foreign Relations series that documents the most important issues in the foreign policy of Presidents Richard M. Nixon and Gerald R. Ford. The subseries presents in multiple volumes a comprehensive documentary [Page IV] record of major foreign policy decisions and actions of both administrations. This specific volume documents arms control and nonproliferation policies, 1973–1976.

Focus of Research and Principles of Selection for Foreign Relations, 1969–1976, Volume E–14

This volume documents the multilateral arms control policies of the Nixon and Ford administrations between 1973 and 1976. Topics include the review of biological and chemical warfare policies, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, approaches to nuclear testing and test-ban proposals, nuclear safeguards, sales of nuclear equipment, environmental modification, and ratification of the 1925 Geneva Protocol outlawing chemical and biological weapons. Most of these negotiations took place in international arenas such as the Conference of the Committee of Disarmament (CCD), the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and the United Nations. The documentation included chronicles the perspectives of not only Presidents Nixon and Ford but also Secretaries of State Rogers and Kissinger, Secretary of Defense Schlesinger, Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA) Director Iklé, and Energy Research and Development Administration (ERDA) Administrator Seamans.

Editorial Methodology

The documents are presented chronologically according to Washington time. Memoranda of conversations are placed according to the date and time of the conversation, rather than the date a memorandum was drafted. Documents chosen for printing are authoritative or signed copies, unless otherwise noted.

Editorial treatment of the documents published in the Foreign Relations series follows Office style guidelines, supplemented by guidance from the General Editor and the Chief of the Declassification and Publishing Division. The documents are reproduced as exactly as possible, including marginalia or other notations, which are described in the footnotes. Texts are transcribed and printed according to accepted conventions for the publication of historical documents within the limitations of modern typography. A heading has been supplied by the editors for each document included in the volume. Spelling, capitalization, and punctuation are retained as found in the original text, except that obvious typographical errors are silently corrected. Other mistakes and omissions in the documents are corrected by bracketed insertions: a correction is set in italic type; an addition in roman type. Words or phrases underlined in the source text are printed in italics. Abbreviations and contractions are preserved as found in the original text, and a list of abbreviations is included in the front matter of each volume.

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Bracketed insertions are also used to indicate omitted text that deals with an unrelated subject (in roman type) or that remains classified after declassification review (in italic type). The amount and, where possible, the nature of the material not declassified has been noted by indicating the number of lines or pages of text that were omitted. Entire documents withheld for declassification purposes have been accounted for and are listed with headings, source notes, and number of pages not declassified in their chronological place. All brackets that appear in the original text are so identified in footnotes. All ellipses are in the original documents.

The first footnote to each document indicates the document’s source, original classification, distribution, and drafting information. This note also provides the background of important documents and policies and indicates whether the President or his major policy advisers read the document.

Editorial notes and additional annotation summarize pertinent material not printed in the volume, indicate the location of additional documentary sources, provide references to important related documents printed in other volumes, describe key events, and provide summaries of and citations to public statements that supplement and elucidate the printed documents. Information derived from memoirs and other first-hand accounts has been used where appropriate to supplement or explicate the official record.

Advisory Committee on Historical Diplomatic Documentation

The Advisory Committee on Historical Diplomatic Documentation, established under the Foreign Relations statute, reviews records, advises, and makes recommendations concerning the Foreign Relations series. The Advisory Committee monitors the overall compilation and editorial process of the series and advises on all aspects of the preparation and declassification of the series. The Advisory Committee does not necessarily review the contents of individual volumes in the series, but it makes recommendations on issues that come to its attention and reviews volumes, as it deems necessary to fulfill its advisory and statutory obligations.

Declassification Review

The Office of Information Programs and Services, Bureau of Administration, conducted the declassification review for the Department of State of the documents published in this volume. The review was conducted in accordance with the standards set forth in Executive Order 13526, as amended, on Classified National Security Information and other applicable laws.

The principle guiding declassification review is to release all information, subject only to the current requirements of national security, as [Page VI] embodied in law and regulation. Declassification decisions entailed concurrence of the appropriate geographic and functional bureaus in the Department of State, other concerned agencies of the U.S. Government, and the appropriate foreign governments regarding specific documents of those governments. The declassification review of this volume, which began in 2008 and was completed in 2014, resulted in the decision to withold 0 documents in full, excise a paragraph or more in 5 documents, and make minor excisions of less than a paragraph in 10 documents.

The Office of the Historian is confident, on the basis of the research conducted in preparing this volume and as a result of the declassification review process described above, that the record presented here provides an accurate and comprehensive account of arms control and nonproliferation policies during the Nixon and Ford administrations.

Acknowledgements

The editors wish to acknowledge the assistance of archivists at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library in Ann Arbor, Michigan, particularly Geir Gundersen, Donna Lehman, and Helmi Raaska, and the archivists at the Nixon Presidential Materials Project of the National Archives and Records Administration (Archives I), especially Bridget Crawley. Special thanks are due to Dr. John Earl Haynes of the Library of Congress for facilitating access to the Kissinger and Schlesinger Papers, which the editors were able to use with the kind permission of Henry Kissinger and James Schlesinger. The Central Intelligence Agency and the Department of Defense provided full access to their records; the editors would like to thank Sandra Meagher of the Department of Defense for her assistance in expediting the use of Department of Defense files.

Bonnie Sue Kim did the research, initial selection, and initial annotation of the volume under the supervision of Erin R. Mahan, Chief of the Africa and Asia Division and Edward C. Keefer, General Editor of the Foreign Relations series. William B. McAllister and M. Todd Bennett also collected documentation for this volume. David C. Geyer and Melissa Jane Taylor provided additional editorial support. Chris Tudda and Kristin L. Ahlberg revised the volume and added additional documentation under the direction of Kathleen B. Rasmussen, Chief of the Global Issues and General Division and Stephen P. Randolph, The Historian. Kristin Ahlberg prepared the lists of names; abbreviations and terms; and sources. Carl Ashley, Margaret S. Ball, Thomas I. Faith, and Aaron W. Marrs performed the copy and technical editing. Craig A. Daigle did the proofreading. Chris Tudda coordinated the declassifica [Page VII] tion review under the direction of Carl Ashley, Chief of the Declassification and Publishing Division.