Foreign Relations of the United States, 1947, General; The United Nations, Volume I

SPA Files: Lot 428

Memorandum by the Director of the Office of Special Political Affairs (Rusk) to the Under Secretary of State (Lovett)¹

secret

[Washington,] October 17, 1947.

Subject: Proposed US Procedure in the United Nations Commission for Conventional Armaments

A procedure for the United States to advocate in the Commission for Conventional Armaments, including submission of the Bard Plan, at an appropriate time, is proposed as follows:

1. Proceed with consideration of items 2 and 3 of approved CCA Plan of work.

a. Plan of work (Tab A)²

b. US views on items 2 and 3 (Tab B)³

c. Secretariat synopsis of Delegations’ views on items 2 and 3⁴ (Tab C)

2. After completion of consideration of items 2 and 3, or in the absence of unanimous agreement, the US should decide whether the amount of agreement on items 2 and 3 makes it possible or desirable to proceed to discussion of item 4.

3. If it is decided to proceed to item 4, the Bard Plan (or a similar plan) should be offered by the US as the first stage of a practical proposal for the regulation and reduction of conventional armaments. The decision as to when the Bard Plan would be put into operation should be made in the light of the political situation existing at the time.

a. Secretary Marshall’s General Assembly speech: excerpt on conventional armaments regulation (Tab D)⁵

b. The Bard Plan (Tab E)⁶

4. If it is decided not to proceed to a discussion of item 4, the CCA should either return to further consideration of the points of disagreement in items 1, 2 and 3, or should recess for, say, a year to await a more favorable political atmosphere.

5. If at any time members of the CCA consider that information on conventional armaments and armed forces is necessary or desirable for the furtherance of the work of CCA, the US should support the reporting of categories of information not classified by the US and should not connect such reporting with inspection, verification or other safeguards.

1. This document was used by Rusk in briefing Lovett for his meeting with Forrestal, Bard, and Eisenhower on October 17. It was circulated in the Executive Committee on Regulation of Armaments as RAC D–13/11, November 7. (Department of State Disarmament Files)
2. RAC D-13/5, June 19, p. 525.
3. The tabs do not accompany the source text. The document under reference is presumably RAC D–13/10e (US/A/C.1/136), not printed, upon which Bard’s statement to the Working Committee of the Commission on Conventional Armaments, September 17, was based; the latter document is printed on p. 660.
4. The Working Committee of the CCA decided at its 5th Meeting, September 12, that the delegations should submit their views with respect to items 2 and 3 of the Plan of Work. Bard’s statement of September 17, p. 660, represents the United States response. The working papers submitted were tabulated as a synopsis by the CCA Secretariat and presented to the Working Committee on October 10. A copy of this document is in the IO Files.
5. For text of Secretary Marshall’s speech at the 82nd Plenary Meeting of the General Assembly, September 17, during the general debate phase of the 2nd Regular Session, see United Nations, Official Records of the General Assembly, Second Session, Plenary Meetings, Vol. i, pp. 19–27 (hereafter cited as GA (ii), Plenary).
6. Document RAC D–9/1a, July 16, p. 562.