179. Memorandum of Conversation0
Prime Minister Macmillan’s Visit to Washington, April 27-29
SUBJECT
- Nuclear Testing
PARTICIPANTS
- US
- The President
- The Secretary
- Under Secretary Ball
- Ambassador Bruce
- Mr. McGeorge Bundy, White House
- Mr. Pierre Salinger, White House
- Mr. William R. Tyler, Acting Assistant Secretary of State
- Mr. William C. Burdett, Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of State
- Mr. Joseph Sweeney, BNA
- British
- Prime Minister Macmillan
- Sir Norman Brook, Secretary to the Cabinet
- Ambassador Ormsby Gore
- Sir Evelyn Shuckburgh, Deputy Under Secretary of State, Foreign Office
- Mr. Harold Evans, Public Relations Adviser
- Mr. M.A.M. Robb, Information Minister, British Embassy
- Mr. John Thompson, First Secretary, British Embassy
- Mr. Philip de Zulueta, Private Secretary to Prime Minister
The President said he would like to review what the Prime Minister and he had discussed about nuclear testing. We should wait until after our tests which would take three or four months and the Soviet tests which we expected to follow. Then we should consider after analyzing the results whether we should make another offer limited to tests in the atmosphere or consisting of an entire treaty. We should be considering now what should be done. We would have to take into account pressures in our two countries and around the world.
The Prime Minister said he had been watching this matter for a long time. We are always on the point of agreement then, such is the ingenuity of our scientists, they think of something which makes agreement impossible. In fact we have steadily moved to less vigorous requirements. We always seem to miss the proper moment. We could have had an agreement some years back on what we are offering now. That is, [Page 448] assuming the Russians want an agreement. Years ago we never heard of underground testing. We ought to get our scientists together on this in the three or four months period available. They should work partly in light of world reactions and partly in the light of what might be acceptable to the Russians. A nuclear test agreement has its relations to the whole disarmament discussions. The Russians were saying that if we were prepared to disarm they would accept some control. We are only asking for an occasional team to look at some explosion.
The Prime Minister said that if we develop a new plan on nuclear testing we should present it directly to Khrushchev. We should not make it public. Doing so would only lead to propaganda. Ambassador Ormsby Gore thought that whatever offer is made on nuclear tests cannot be based on the 1958 treaty. Having turned it down completely all along the line, the Russians could not go back to the old treaty. We would have to say that our proposals were based on something new.
The President remarked that we could offer an atmospheric test ban. If we go further, however, we have to tread on old ground. Anyway we should have our scientists go to work.
Mr. Bundy commented on the importance of keeping the plan quiet. If the possibility of new proposals on tests was discussed in advance in this country it would be much more difficult to defend once it was presented. The President said he was sure we should not reveal that we were discussing another atmospheric test ban offer. After an analysis of the tests we may find that we cannot make one. The Secretary noted that our present offer involves only a farthing of inspection. If it is rejected by the Russians the prospects for general disarmament are most discouraging.
The Prime Minister pointed out that our position calls for episodic inspections or fixed controls. We have really exhausted all the arguments about the offer before we have even made it. Agreement will not come about as the result of a long elaborate process. We spend half our time defending offers before our own people. We did quite well at Geneva until right at the end. Then we did not do too well with the neutrals. The Secretary paid tribute to the way in which Lord Home had handled Gromyko at Geneva.
The Prime Minister recalled that when he sat down with Khrushchev he said to him that we might have three or four inspections or some agreed number. Khrushchev accepted. The Prime Minister had gotten into trouble with President Eisenhower over this suggestion. Khrushchev had tried to hold him to it. The point was that a formal, elaborate approach gets us into trouble.
The Prime Minister raised again the subject of nuclear tests in the afternoon meeting. He said he understood there had been one or two changes with respect to the systems tests. The President replied that the Atlas test had been cancelled. We were still thinking of carrying out the [Page 449] other systems tests. Mr. Bundy said that the other changes were marginal and technical in nature.
The Prime Minister explained that he wanted to be able to say that the President and he had worked out the question of tests together, that any changes were made together. Mr. Bundy said that the number of tests remained the same.
- Source: Department of State, Central Files, 600.0012/4-2862. Secret. Drafted by Burdett (EUR) and approved by the White House on May 4. The meeting was held at the White House. Reference to “the afternoon meeting” in the penultimate paragraph indicates that the discussion of nuclear testing resumed in the afternoon. Macmillan visited Washington April 27-29 to discuss questions of common concern with President Kennedy.↩