373. Memorandum From the Director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (Foster) to the Committee of Principals0
SUBJECT
- Draft U.S. Proposal for a Separable First Stage Disarmament Plan1
On January 21 the Eighteen-Nation Disarmament Conference (ENDC) will be resumed. ACDA is currently up-dating a number of existing position papers. In some instances minor modifications or elaborations with respect to individual topics may be recommended. ACDA is also preparing a new paper dealing with proposals to establish observation posts to reduce the danger of surprise conventional attack. Within the next few days ACDA will forward the first of these position papers to the interested agencies.
The April 18, 1962 Treaty Outline2 was submitted to the ENDC for the purpose of stimulating an informed discussion of the problems implicit in reaching the ultimate goal of general and complete disarmament. This purpose has largely been achieved, with the result that the sense of the members of the ENDC is that while most of them still retain general and complete disarmament in a peaceful world as an ultimate goal, their primary interest is in discussing measures of arms control and disarmament which they hope can be accomplished in the foreseeable future; in a very real sense there is now general acceptance of the U.S. objective set forth at the time of the opening of the ENDC in President Kennedy’s letter to the Secretary of State:3 “The objective should be to define in treaty terms the widest area of agreement that can be implemented at the earliest possible time while still continuing your maximum efforts to achieve agreement on those other aspects which present more difficulty.”
We should therefore begin an examination within the Government of a disarmament proposal that would enable us to take the initiative in this new focus for negotiations and which would at the same time facilitate a more realistic exploration of Soviet attitudes than is possible either within the ambitious context of present GCD discussions or the very limited context of individual “confidence-building” measures. The attached [Page 901] draft of a separable first step plan is submitted for the purpose of initiating a policy review which would meet these requirements.
The proposal, for the reasons set forth in the attached draft, is limited to major armaments used for the delivery of nuclear weapons. ACDA does not believe, however, that either during our forthcoming governmental considerations or in subsequent negotiations, the possibility of enlarging the plan to cover other elements of national military capability should be excluded. It would be helpful to have the views of others on this point.
The most significant act in implementing the proposal would of course be the production cut-off rather than the reductions themselves. Here again, while the reasons set forth in the paper argue for not limiting a proposal to a production cut-off, this is a matter that should be considered in full in interagency consultations.
A further significant element of this proposal is the focus of formal inspection (aside from unilateral national capabilities) on production facilities and armaments that are to be destroyed. If this focus can be made safely—and in the context of this proposal on major nuclear delivery vehicles ACDA believes this to be the case—it offers the possibility of a major breakthrough in negotiations.
It is recognized that there are many arguments that can be raised against a proposal of this nature, or against any proposal that is apt to offer possibilities for serious negotiations with the Soviet Union within the context of the present world scene. From a strategic standpoint, the basic argument for this proposal would appear to be as follows:
The U.S. already has a strong, invulnerable strategic force. The build-up on this force is beginning to level off, and probably would be near its end by the time agreement could be reached. The Soviets, on the other hand, are apparently on an earlier portion of their build-up. To allow them to continue would result in a degradation of our present strategic advantage. If we can arrest their building program even at the expense of a percentage reduction of strategic forces on both sides, we will be much better off and they will save the economic resources involved. Far from decreasing our ability or willingness to use nuclears if need be, this should help to preserve it.
It is anticipated that following discussion by Deputies in the near future, the proposal, with suitable modifications, would be discussed by the Committee of Principals.
- Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, Subject File, ACDA Pubs, Volume I, 1 of 2. Secret. Lyndon B. Johnson became President following the assassination of President Kennedy on November 22 in Dallas, Texas.↩
- Attached but not printed.↩
- For text, see Documents on Disarmament, 1962, vol. I, pp. 351-382.↩
- Dated March 13, 1962; for text, see ibid., pp. 90-91.↩