223. Memorandum From the Director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (Foster) to the President’s Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Bundy)0
SUBJECT
- Next Steps in Nuclear Test Negotiations
We would like to be in a position to submit to the Geneva Disarmament Conference the text of a modified comprehensive test ban treaty, as well as of a limited atmospheric-underwater-outer space agreement, either on August 27 or August 29. This would be sufficiently in advance of the recess now scheduled for September 8 to allow for a limited discussion of these two documents. The agreed texts are attached as Tabs A and B.1
We have the formal concurrence of State, Defense and AEC in these texts. Although the UK has continued to have some reservation about the handling of international observers at nationally manned control posts, they have agreed not to pursue these differences given their feeling about the urgent need for an early tabling of these documents.
The comprehensive treaty draft reflects the new approach which Ambassador Dean has already presented in general terms in Geneva. It does not include any numbers for on-site inspections or control posts, since we wish to avoid discussing such matters while the USSR rejects the very principle of on-site inspection.
Although Soviet acceptance of the principle of on-site inspection is currently not likely, submitting specific treaty language will pose the [Page 560] question to them in terms which are clearer and more pointed than has been possible during the past several weeks.
More importantly, we believe that having both treaties on record will serve to define the U.S. position on the nuclear test question with considerably more precision and will provide us with a platform on which to make our case in the General Assembly during the next months.
In the absence of a comprehensive proposal which is as specific as we can make it, we are concerned that our efforts to negotiate a limited treaty will be doomed from the outset. Unless we have an attractive alternative, the Soviet Union will probably be able to make headway if it attempts to round up support for an atmospheric, underwater and outer space test ban agreement coupled with and inseparable from a moratorium on underground nuclear weapon tests. Unquestionably, the Soviet Union will attempt to make the issue in the coming General Assembly debate one of American refusal to accept a moratorium on underground tests and thus shift the focus from Soviet refusal to accept on-site inspection. We will be in a good position to fend off this attack if we have on the record a sound and reasonable comprehensive test ban treaty based on the most recent scientific findings.