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

54. Letter From Prime Minister Macmillan to President Kennedy⁰

London, August 14, 1961.

Dear Mr. President, I am very glad to have had your personal letter of August 3¹ and to have this opportunity for an exchange of views about the Nuclear Tests problem. While considering my reply I have also seen reports of your Press Conference of August 10² and I have taken account of these. I am assuming however that these do not affect the substance of your letter to me.

I agree that without a control system we cannot be sure that the Russians are not testing and I recognise that if all our efforts to secure a treaty fail, a decision on the resumption of testing may have to be taken. But I hope that there will be no question of resuming tests for purely negative reasons, for example because the Russians may be doing so. If of course there was some specific knowledge which would only be gained by another test, the situation might be different.

Meanwhile I anticipate that the problem will fall into two or three distinct phases. There are six weeks left before the General Assembly and I shall be glad to agree that during that time Dean and Ormsby Gore should make a new effort at Geneva. In view of the present state of the international climate I do not expect this to succeed. Our object should be to focus attention again on Soviet intractability and to secure as much understanding and support as we can for the Western position.

The timing of this move seems to me important for if it emerges too soon that our efforts are not succeeding you and I may be under pressure to admit that the conference has failed and to consider radically new approaches. If we can avoid reaching this point until shortly before the General Assembly, pressures of this kind should be easier to avert. For this reason my inclination has been to suggest that we should begin a new move at Geneva a little later than you suggest, perhaps in the first few days of September. However I see that you have mentioned August 24 at your Press Conference, and if you feel after further consideration that this would be better, we can arrange for Ormsby Gore to join Dean on or just after that date. In that case, for the reasons I have explained, I would be in favour of playing the hand slowly with the idea that failure of this effort would still not be apparent before, say, the end of the first week of September. My preference would still be to start a week later than you suggest, if this does not present too great difficulties for you.

When the Assembly meets I am sure you will agree that our objective should be to secure a resolution calling for the resumption of serious negotiations at Geneva with a view to the early conclusion of a treaty. This seems to me both the best we can hope for and the least that will protect the Western position and give us a final chance to get the Russians to sign a treaty. The Assembly may of course go further. The Indians have now tabled an item, together with an explanatory memo, which calls upon all States, pending the conclusion of a treaty, to refrain from testing.³ This is awkward, for on past form it is likely to command a wide measure of support.

Assuming that we can arrange for the item to be dealt with reasonably quickly, we should then have a short period in perhaps November and December for a further and probably final effort to move the Russians. If, as you point out, the Berlin situation allows it, this would be the time for a final appeal to Khrushchev. We should also consider what final concessions, if any, we might be able to offer in order to secure a treaty. On the moratorium our position is sound and logical, but I believe that publicly it is not seen in that light and that Russian propaganda to the effect that it is a device to prepare for resumed Western testing after three years is having some effect. Indeed the Indian explanatory memorandum to the United Nations picks out the moratorium as a “cause for serious anxiety”.⁴ One idea that our officials might look at again is whether we could offer a comprehensive treaty covering all environments. This would mean eliminating the moratorium and threshold in exchange for tightening up the language committing the Russians to an extensive research programme and the introduction of some kind of “escape hatch” relating to underground tests, such as is in our high altitude proposals, which would enable us to withdraw from that part of the treaty if detection cannot be made effective.

I am attracted by your idea of offering an unpoliced agreement on tests that cause fallout. We should not, however, delude ourselves that if thereafter the United States resumes testing underground and the Russians then test in the atmosphere, there will not be a widespread tendency to denounce the country that first broke the present voluntary suspension of tests irrespective of the environment. But with that qualification I believe that some such move will be necessary to show that we are fully conscious of world-wide anxiety about fallout and ready to do our best to avoid it.

I am glad to see that we seem to be very close together, both as to what it may be possible to do and as to how we should set about it. I am confident that we should be able to move closely in step during the undeniably difficult stages ahead.

[Here follows discussion of the Common Market and Berlin.]

Harold Macmillan⁵

0. Source: Department of State, Presidential Correspondence: Lot 72 D 204, Macmillan-Kennedy 1961. Top Secret.
1. Document 50.
2. See footnote 4, Document 46.
3. For texts of these documents, dated July 28, see Documents on Disarmament, 1961, pp. 270-271.
4. The full sentence reads: “Statements on behalf of the different parties concerned about the possible renewal of tests in case agreement is not reached, as well as the contemplated limitation of the period of moratorium give cause for serious anxiety.”
5. Printed from a copy that bears this typed signature.