173. Editorial Note
On March 28, 1962, during a National Security Council meeting, Secretary of State Rusk reported to the President on the Eighteen-Nation Disarmament Conference still underway in Geneva. According to the minutes of the meeting, Rusk stated that “on testing, it was utterly clear that the Soviets would accept no inspection in the USSR, in any way, shape or form. They had made this position plain in public and in private; Gromyko had told the Secretary privately that even one foreigner loose in the Soviet Union could find things out that would be most damaging to the USSR. There seemed no room to negotiate on this point.” Turning to the problem of general disarmament, Rusk said that “the Soviets had brought in a complete treaty covering complete disarmament by stages. But the Soviet position clearly allows only for inspection of disarmament and not for retained armaments.” For text of the minutes, see Foreign Relations, 1961–1963, volume VII, pages 411–414.