87. Letter From the Secretary of State to
the President’s Special Assistant (Stassen)1
Washington, December 11,
1955.
Dear Harold: I have read Volume Five2 of your
proposed policy of the United States on the question of disarmament with
great interest and with appreciation for the complexity of the task.
In examining your report I have looked at it, of course, from the
standpoint of the Department of State’s primary concern with its foreign
policy aspects and implications.
Since May 10, the Soviet Union has made much of the fact that its
proposals are concrete, detailed, and in various respects adopt views
previously put forward by us, the United Kingdom, France, and Canada.
The Soviet Union has claimed that the United States has turned its back
on disarmament proper and is concerned only with inspection and control.
They have pointed to the fact that the President’s Geneva proposal is
not disarmament. They have also supported their argument that we do not
desire disarmament by stressing the fact that we have placed our
detailed past proposals in a reserved status.
The foreign policy effects of the present United States position, in my
opinion, have to date not been unfavorable largely because of two
factors. The first is the impact the President’s Geneva proposal has had
on world opinion. The second is world awareness of an intensive United
States review of policy as evidenced by your appointment as the
President’s Special Assistant for Disarmament and by the disclosure that
you had in turn appointed the eight task forces to assist you in your
work.
These two factors have given us a period of grace during which we could
formulate a general position on disarmament. I believe that this period
of grace is coming to an end. The United States can no longer, without
detriment to its international stature, continue to reserve its
positions on disarmament. Our proposals should advance the security
interests of the United States and make a favorable impact on our Allies
as well as the Russians. For this we need a concrete and positive
program. I do not consider that your report, in its present form, lends
itself to United States proposals of this nature.
In analyzing your report and recommendations, I found three general
problems:
[Page 241]
- First, the outline of the inspection and control system is so
general that it does not provide me with the details necessary
to evaluate your policy suggestions, which logically should
spring from the effectiveness of the inspection system
itself.
- Second, from a foreign policy standpoint, it seems necessary
to be able to give some fairly clear indication of the United
States attitude towards limitations or reductions of armed
forces and conventional armaments. Your report does not clearly
point out what you would propose be said in this respect and, in
fact, suggests that we should defer discussing the question of
force levels until after the whole inspection system is
installed. In this connection, I think we must take account of
the policy decision made recently when we accepted the United
Kingdom’s proposed language in the Four-Power resolution on
disarmament in the present U.N. General Assembly. This language
calls for priority attention to “early agreement on such
measures of an adequately safeguarded disarmament plan as are
now feasible”.3 I appreciate, of course,
that this decision was made after your Report was submitted, but
it does bear on the problem.
- Third, while it is not clear what is proposed should be done
in the nuclear field, it appears that no mention is made of the
possibility of any ultimate reductions of nuclear weapons
stockpiles as part of a general disarmament program. From the
State Department’s standpoint, it would seem advisable that some
provision should be made for this ultimate possibility, under
adequate safeguards.
These are the principal comments which I have to make on your report. I
am attaching, in addition, more detailed comments to supplement these
views.
Sincerely yours,
Attachment
Memorandum Prepared in the Department of State4
COMMENTS ON VOLUME V OF THE PROGRESS REPORT ON PROPOSED
POLICY OF THE UNITED STATES ON THE QUESTION OF DISARMAMENT
1. Inspection
The outline of a possible system of inspection is very general, since
the detailed inspection plan is apparently still in preparation.
Without such a detailed plan and information as to the stages in
which
[Page 242]
it would be applied,
it is not possible to arrive at an adequate judgment of the policy
suggestions which are put forward. The outline of the proposed
inspection system raises a number of important questions. How would
the inspection system provide the kind of inspection and control
necessary to police an agreement for limiting nuclear production to
peaceful uses? Would the whole inspection system, involving some
20,000 to 30,000 US personnel in communist areas, be required for
support of such preliminary steps as are involved in the President’s
proposal or in modest initial reductions of conventional forces? In
what way would the proposed bilateral inspection system between the
US and the USSR be expanded into a
multilateral system? Until detailed proposals for an inspection
system and its various phases are available only preliminary
comments can be made on the policy recommendations in the
Report.
2. Reductions of Conventional
Forces
The Report does not include among the “priority objectives” of the
United States any reference to lessening of the burden of armaments.
The NSC Action to which the Report
is responsive states that the US in its own interest should
“actively seek an international system for the regulation and
reduction of armed forces and armaments.” The Report proposes that
the US should defer contemplation of other than modest initial
reductions of conventional and nuclear weapons carrying capacity
forces until after the whole inspection system is installed and in
the meantime should avoid discussion of reduced force levels.
Avoidance of discussion or negotiation on force levels and reductions
would be disadvantageous for both practical and political
reasons.
- a.
(1) From a practical point of view, it is difficult to see
how reduction of numerically superior Soviet conventional
forces to a position of numerical equality with US
conventional forces could fail to assist US security.
(2) It is conceivable that even if the NATO countries should maintain
present levels of military expenditures, they might decide
to spend a greater proportion for equipment and as a
consequence decide to reduce the numerical levels of
forces.
(3) Moreover, despite recent evidences of Soviet
intransigence on major political issues, US allies and US
public opinion continue to believe that the Soviets are not
going to resort to military force. There will continue to be
domestic political pressures among our allies and in this
country which will tend in the direction of unilateral
reductions of conventional forces and armaments.
(4) For these reasons it is in the US interest to use our
bargaining position to secure agreements from the Russians
for mutual reduction of conventional forces before that
bargaining position deteriorates.
- b.
- US avoidance of discussion of force levels will put the US in
a poor political position. The US originally proposed for illustrative purposes the figures for US
and USSR forces which the
Soviets are now putting forth. It is obviously damaging that the
USSR with a greater number
of conventional forces should be professing to agree to a
reduction which would place it on terms of equality with the US
while the US gives the impression of backing away from such
discussion. It is particularly damaging since the US has
previously maintained that reduction of Soviet conventional
superiority is a logical precondition to progress toward control
or reduction of nuclear capabilities.
Before the US adopts a position with respect to reduction of forces,
military advice is required from the Department of Defense as to
whether reduction of conventional forces to the levels now proposed
by the USSR would or would not be
advantageous to US security on the assumption that for the
foreseeable future both the US and USSR will retain massive nuclear capabilities. The
Joint Chiefs of Staff have accurately stated that the levels
proposed were set forward by the US merely for illustrative purposes
and did not derive from any realistic military analysis. They should
now be requested to undertake a military analysis of whether or not
these or other agreed levels of forces would be acceptable from the
point of view of the military security of the United States.
3. Nuclear Control
The Report makes the proposal that the US should agree that future
nuclear production should be only for peaceful purposes at such time
as an international control agency can supervise the material
produced and maintain it in safeguarded stockpiles. In the previous
volume of the Progress Report, it was proposed that nuclear
production should cease, except for that incidental to peaceful
uses. It is not clear whether the present proposal includes such
cessation. Cessation of nuclear production, except incidental to
peaceful purposes, would seem to have the practical value of (a)
leading to a freezing of USSR
capabilities, (b) preventing the achievement of nuclear weapons
capabilities by countries which do not now possess nuclear weapons,
if supervised effectively.
The proposed policy makes no provision for the possibility of
eventual reductions in nuclear weapons stockpiles as part of a
general disarmament program. It may well be advisable to include
some such provision. Eventual safeguarded reduction of stockpiles
would be in the interest of the US, as indicated in somewhat
different context in the President’s December 8, 1953
atoms-for-peace proposal. If the US does not propose such reductions
it will be accused of having abandoned reductions of nuclear
armaments as even an eventual goal.
[Page 244]
4. General Comments
- a.
- The Report does not mention reductions of conventional
armaments (as distinct from forces) except for the possibility
of eventual reduction of nuclear weapons carrying
capacity.
- b.
- The Report proposes a synthesis of acceptable portions of
UK, French and USSR proposals. How would an
acceptable synthesis be achieved which would dispose of the
difficulty that these proposals call for prohibition and
elimination of nuclear weapons, and this concept affects all
other parts of the UK, French and
Soviet proposals?
- c.
- The Report calls for cessation of nuclear weapons tests as
part of a “comprehensive arrangement”. What kind of an
arrangement is envisaged and at what stage in it would cessation
of nuclear tests be agreed to?
- d.
- Is the International Atomic Control Agency, mentioned in the
Report, the agency of which the statute is now being negotiated
or is it a part of the International Armaments Commission to
which the Report refers in outlining the proposed inspection
system?
- e.
- Consultation with our allies will be required prior to taking
definitive positions with respect to inspection or reduction of
forces, in any case where the territory or forces of our allies
are concerned. In view of the inter-dependency of forces
developed under the NATO
alliance, full consultation with the Organization as a whole
would be requisite with respect to any aspect which bore upon
NATO defense, including
inspection of U.S. bases in the general NATO area and force reductions of any NATO country, including the United
States, if its NATO
contribution was thus affected.
