Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961–1963, Volume VII, Arms Control and Disarmament

116. Memorandum From the President’s Special Assistant (Schlesinger) to President Kennedy⁰

Washington, January 4, 1962.

SUBJECT

• Resumption of Atmospheric Testing

The Foster group met today.¹ Most of the talk was in terms of a Presidential announcement of the resumption of atmospheric testing early in February.² (At my behest, however, and in order to hold the balance even, a paper has been prepared entitled “Program to Explain U.S. Decision to Refrain from Testing in the Atmosphere”!)³

1. If this is the way the decision is going to go, I would like to make the following proposal: that the President announce early in February (a) that we have no choice but to begin atmospheric testing on April 1, (b) that spectacular test preparations are under way, but (c) that we will cancel these tests on one condition—that the Soviet Union sign the test ban treaty submitted at Geneva.

2. This proposal has some obvious advantages:

a) it puts testing in the context of disarmament and makes clear which we prefer;

b) it puts the USSR in the position of triggering our test series and may therefore do something in the weeks before actual resumption to transfer popular indignation from the USA to the USSR. Pressure will be applied to the Communists to sign the treaty as well as on us to suspend the tests.

3. I see no disadvantage in our making this proposal if we still want the Geneva treaty. This suggests the need for a thorough reappraisal of the Geneva treaty in the light of recent developments.

4. The USSR could respond by accepting the Geneva treaty. Or it could respond by denouncing the whole proposal (most likely). Or it could respond by throwing the Kennedy-Macmillan offer of last September back on us—that is, by proposing a moratorium on atmospheric testing.

5. What should we do then? My view is that we should reject a moratorium on the ground that experience has defined a moratorium as a space of time in which the Soviet Union prepares for its next series of tests.

But what if the USSR proposes a treaty banning atmospheric tests? Because it would be harder for the USSR to violate a treaty than to end a moratorium, I think that a treaty might well be considered in a different category. Query: would such a treaty be disadvantageous to us? Since our underground testing capability is greater than the Soviet Union’s, we would surely stand to gain by an arrangement which allowed underground testing but banned atmospheric testing.

6. Anyway what is wrong with saying that, if the USSR will sign the treaty, we will stop the tests?

A.S. jr.

0. Source: Kennedy Library, National Security Files, Subjects Series, Nuclear Weapons Tests, 12/21/61-1/8/62. Secret. A notation in Bundy’s handwriting reads: “Put in folder of things to talk to Pres. about.”
1. A memorandum by Goodby of this meeting of the Subcommittee of the NSC Committee on Atmospheric Testing, chaired by Foster and established by NSAM No. 116 (Document 105), is not printed. (Department of State, Central Files, 600.0012/1-462)
2. On January 5, Foster submitted the Subcommittee’s report to the President. It recommended that the United States, in announcing a test resumption, avoid a defensive or apologetic attitude and demonstrate forcefully that U.S. national security required atmospheric testing. The Subcommittee suggested Presidential announcement of a decision in mid-February, with atmospheric tests to begin in Nevada at the end of February and in the Pacific 2-3 weeks later. The series would conclude by the end of June. Text of Foster’s letter and a summary of the report are in Seaborg, Journal, vol. 3, pp. 22-26.
3. Not found.