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

253. Teletype Message From Prime Minister Macmillan to President Kennedy⁰

London, January 5, 1963.

T.9/63. Message begins.

Dear Friend

I am most grateful to you for sending me a copy of your reply to Khrushchev’s letter.¹ It may be something of real value that he is now prepared to admit the possibility of on site inspections in the Soviet Union, even though the number he proposes is no more than the three inspections suggested by the Soviet delegate at the Geneva nuclear tests conference in July 1960.² But I share your hope that these suggestions by Khrushchev will prove to be helpful in taking us down the road to an agreement. I welcome your proposal that Foster should have bilateral talks with the Russians and I certainly hope that Khrushchev will respond to it. I look forward to hearing from you how he reacts.

A number of points in Mr. Khrushchev’s offer need further exploration, and I think that you have put a number of most pertinent questions to him. One or two further points occur to me, which no doubt Foster already will have in mind.

We shall for example need to explore whether Khrushchev accepts our views about who is to make the choice of events to be inspected. His letter to you refers to inspection “in those cases when it would be considered necessary”, a formula which is no doubt deliberately vague. It might be possible also to use the idea of a reverse quota to satisfy the Russian fear of inspection in a particularly sensitive area.

On the question of black boxes, our scientists agree that their best use is for improving our capability to identify seismic events and that for this purpose there should be effective arrays to cover seismic areas. Part of this network, as you suggest, might spill over into Afghanistan, Pakistan and Japan. But I think we should reckon with the possibility that, in making a similar suggestion, Khrushchev may have something rather different in mind, since his concept of the use of black boxes is clearly different from ours. He may, for example, be trying to imply that black boxes in countries neighboring the Soviet Union might be a substitute for manned detection posts in those countries. The penultimate paragraph of his message proposes that the basis of control over underground tests would be “the national means of detection in combination with automatic seismic stations”. Whatever this means, it seems to me clear that the use of black boxes should not be intended to retard or invalidate the establishment of an effective international coordination, as proposed by us at Geneva.

I will not say more here about the technical aspects and have only mentioned a few that strike me as important. But I should like to suggest that advantage be taken of Zuckerman’s forthcoming visit to Washington for talks with Wiesner (on January 11) to go over these questions together.

Yours ever

Harold Macmillan

Message ends.

0. Source: Department of State, Presidential Correspondence: Lot 66 D 204, Macmillan-Kennedy 1963. Top Secret. The time of transmission is illegible.
1. See Document 251.
2. On July 26, 1960, Semen K. Tsarapkin, Soviet Representative to the Geneva Conference on the Discontinuance of Nuclear Weapon Tests, stated that the Soviet Union would accept up to three visits per year by teams dispatched by the control commission for on-site inspection of events suspected of being nuclear explosions. For Tsarapkin’s statement, see Documents on Disarmament, 1960, pp. 172-180.