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

275. Telegram From President Kennedy to Prime Minister Macmillan⁰

Washington, April 15, 1963.

CAP 63181. To the Prime Minister from the President. Thank you for your message of April 13.¹ I agree to your proposal for delivery by the Ambassadors acting jointly, and to the indications which you suggest that they should give. Unless the revisions I propose below give you real trouble, I think we should be able to meet the delivery schedule you suggest.

On the language of the message, I agree that we are close, but there are two points on which I think we still need to be careful with the language. The one which is of immediate concern to me is paragraph 6 on the possibility of a summit.

I feel there is still some difference between us on the conditions in which a summit meeting would be useful,² and I do not want to leave a misunderstanding that might trouble us at a later point. I continue to believe that the two of us should meet with Khrushchev on this matter only if enough progress is made at other levels so that a meeting would seem very likely to result in an agreement. I believe it may be your feeling that a summit meeting on the test ban might be useful also if major problems have been clearly identified, and apparent deadlock reached, at lower levels. But memories of the meeting of May 1960 are very strong in this country and in my own mind, and I believe that on the historic evidence it is not likely that Khrushchev would make major changes at a summit from positions put forward under his direction at lower levels. Like you and me, he is quite capable of making policy decisions at the end of a telegraph wire, as well as in person. So my present view is that we would want something better than clarification of major issues before it would be wise to go to the summit. As paragraph 6 now stands in your proposed draft, I think it might be subject to some misunderstanding on this score because of the order of the thoughts, and still more because of the thrust of the next to last sentence. So I would suggest instead still another version of paragraph 6, as follows:³

[Here follows language used in the message transmitted to Moscow on April 15; see Document 276.]

There is one other point which has arisen since we first exchanged drafts which now might require small revisions in paragraph 4. When Dean Rusk was in Paris with Lord Home and Couve de Murville, he discussed with them the draft declaration on the non-transfer of nuclear weapons which he had furnished to them and to the Germans last December.⁴ Rusk felt that he was encouraged by Couve de Murville to find out whether the Soviets would accept that draft as a basis for negotiation; if so, France would consider this a very important development and “would not be antagonistic.” For complete clarity, however, I should caution that France has not yet made a final commitment to participate in negotiations on that subject. In Rusk’s discussion with Home, he pointed out that it would be unfortunate for us to link nuclear agreements on nuclear testing and non-proliferation because it might become possible to move on one without the other and, in any event, it might be possible to get France to join in non-proliferation but not on nuclear testing. In any event, after his talks in Paris, Rusk did take up with Dobrynin the non-transfer point.⁵

To adjust our draft letter to Khrushchev to this new circumstance, we might simply strike out the words “from agreement on a treaty to end nuclear tests” from the fourth sentence of paragraph 4. Further, the final two sentences of paragraph 4 might be revised to read “if it proved possible to move promptly to an agreement on nuclear weapons and on the proliferation of national nuclear capability, an advance to broader agreements might then open up.”

For convenience, I transmit next the full text of the message as it would stand on this basis.⁶

[Here follows text of the message to Khrushchev.]

0. Source: Kennedy Library, National Security Files, Departments and Agencies Series, ACDA, Disarmament, Test Ban Correspondence 3/63-6/63. Secret. The time of transmission is 5:19 Zulu time. Although the message was sent from Washington, Kennedy was consulted about final wording while in Palm Beach. (Telegram CAP 63177, April 14, from the White House to Palm Beach, repeated to the Department of State; Department of State, Presidential Correspondence: Lot 66 D 204, Kennedy-Macmillan 1962-1963)
1. Attached to an April 13 note from Bromley Smith to Rusk. (Ibid., Macmillan-Kennedy 1963) See the Supplement.
2. In his April 13 message, Macmillan agreed to the inclusion of reference to a quota in paragraph 6 of the draft letter to Khrushchev and stated that he “accepted the substance” of Kennedy’s draft of paragraph 6, but suggested further changes. His version expressed the hope that meetings among the three countries’ representatives in Geneva, or between senior U.S. and U.K. representatives and Khrushchev in Moscow, would “by one method or another” get “to the point at which we, who bear the ultimate responsibility for decisions on this matter, would have clearly before us the major problems which remain to be settled.”
3. Telephone calls between Rusk and McGeorge Bundy the morning of April 14 indicate that both men believed, in Bundy’s words, that Macmillan’s latest draft of paragraph 6 contained “a little more summitry than the original language.” Bundy drafted the final version which Rusk approved. (Memoranda of telephone conversations; Department of State, Rusk Files: Lot 72 D 192, Telephone Conversations)
4. Rusk was in Paris April 7-11 for the SEATO Council Meeting. Memoranda of his separate discussions of disarmament matters with Lord Home and Couve de Murville on April 7, and with President de Gaulle on April 8, are in Department of State, Secretary’s Memoranda of Conversation: Lot 65 D 330.
5. A memorandum of Rusk’s conversation with Dobrynin on April 12 is ibid. See the Supplement. Two telephone conversations between Rusk and McGeorge Bundy on nuclear non-diffusion held the late afternoon of April 11 are in Department of State, Rusk Files: Lot 72 D 192, Telephone Conversations. See the Supplement.
6. Macmillan accepted Kennedy’s draft in a message of April 15: “I quite see the force of your arguments and understand your preoccupations.” (Department of State, Presidential Correspondence: Lot 66 D 204, Macmillan-Kennedy 1963)