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

177. Memorandum of Conversation Between Secretary of State Rusk and the Soviet Ambassador (Dobrynin)⁰

Washington, April 23, 1962, 2 p.m.

During my conversation with Mr. Dobrynin today we had a few words about nuclear testing. I pointed out to him that the President had more than once said that his principal disappointment since assuming office was the failure of the three governments concerned to reach a mutually acceptable agreement to ban nuclear tests. I pointed out that we had made strenuous efforts, beginning in March 1961, to meet what we understood to be the Soviet position and had continued these efforts at the present Geneva Conference. I pointed, as examples, to our proposals to eliminate the threshold and to ban tests in all environments (without an increase in inspection arrangements), and to locate control posts in the Soviet Union in direct relationship to seismicity. I outlined to him the principal points in my Geneva talk which led us to conclude that espionage could not be a serious question.¹

I added that it now appears that we shall have to resume tests and, from what has been said in Moscow, we would assume that the Soviets will also test again. I said that it was a continuing policy of the United States to bring about a complete and permanent end of all testing on the basis of an agreement which would give reasonable assurance to the signatories that the agreement was being lived up to. I thought it important for our two governments to remain in contact with each other on this matter and to make every effort to bring to an end the kind of nuclear race in which we are now engaged.

He said he was concerned that the resumption of tests by the United States would lead to a worsening of relations between our two governments. He used the familiar arguments about the numbers of tests conducted by the West and by the Soviet Union and said he did not understand why we had not accepted the statement of the eight powers in Geneva as a basis for further discussion.² After a brief discussion of well known positions of both sides this portion of the conversation ended without a defined conclusion.

DR³

0. Source: Department of State, Central Files, 600.0012/4-2362. Secret. Drafted by Secretary Rusk.
1. In his statement to the Eighteen-Nation Disarmament Committee on March 23, Secretary Rusk disputed the Soviet complaint that the test ban control system “would facilitate Western espionage against the Soviet Union.” For text of his statement, see Documents on Disarmament, 1962, vol. I, pp. 167-176.
2. See footnote 2, Document 175. For text of the U.S. paper submitted in response on April 17 (U.N. doc. ENDC/29), see Documents on Disarmament, 1962, vol. I, pp. 336-338.
3. Rusk’s initials appear in an unidentified hand, indicating Rusk signed the original.