Foreign Relations of the United States, 1951, National Security Affairs; Foreign Economic Policy, Volume I

IO Files, Lot 71 D 440¹

Position Paper Prepared in the Department of State for the United States Delegation to the General Assembly

confidential

[Washington,] October 9, 1951.

SD/A/C.1/375

International Control of Atomic Energy: Implementation of the Report of the Committee of Twelve Recommending Merger of the Atomic Energy and Conventional Armaments Commissions²

the problem

What course of action should be taken by the United States Delegation in order to implement the recommendation of the Committee of Twelve that the functions of the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission and the Commission for Conventional Armaments be merged in a new unified Commission whose function should be to carry forward the tasks presently assigned to these two existing Commissions?

recommendations

1. The United States should introduce in the Ad Hoc Political Committee of the Sixth General Assembly a resolution setting forth in detail the organization and functions of a new unified Commission for the Control of Armaments and Armed Forces. A proposed resolution is attached as Annex A.³

2. The debate in Committee may reveal substantial objection to the functions of the unified Commission as proposed in the United States draft resolution, because of reference to the United Nations plan for the international control of atomic energy and the prohibition of atomic weapons serving as the basis for any plan in this field unless and until a better and no less effective system can be devised. In such event, the United States Delegation should hold firm to its position that there should be such reference to the United Nations plan, pointing out:

(a) that the new commission should continue to have the benefit of the Atomic Energy Commission’s long discussion and mature consideration resulting in a plan approved by 53 United Nations Members.

(b) that the United States is perfectly willing to consider any other system in this field which is better and no less effective than the United Nations plan;

(c) that this does not prejudge other plans.

3. The United States Delegation should take every opportunity to point out the United States willingness to consider problems of disarmament as a whole instead of separating these problems into the atomic and non-atomic aspects of the general issue. The point should be made that the Soviet Union had originally maintained this view, whereas the United States had initially believed that the problem of conventional armaments should be considered separately from the control of atomic energy:

(a) because we recognized that the control of atomic energy posed unique problems of method quite different from the non-atomic field and, accordingly, should be dealt with separately by specially-qualified technicians;

(b) because we hoped that disarmament in the non-atomic field would find a more or less automatic solution in the rapid demobilization of the allied forces, which we had carried out in good faith until forced to rearm by Soviet attempts to achieve their objectives of world domination and extension of Communism;

(c) because the Atomic Energy Commission was making substantial progress in developing a plan for control of atomic energy, and we feared that considering in one Commission the problem of reduction and regulation of armed forces and non-atomic armaments would retard this progress.

Now, after we have concluded that any comprehensive system of armaments control should be considered by one body in order to bring the efforts of the Atomic Energy Commission and the Commission for Conventional Armaments into closer coordination, the Soviets have voted against the Committee of Twelve’s proposal to this effect, while the United States not only voted in favor of this proposal but also took the initiative in introducing the resolution adopted by the Committee. This is another illustration of Soviet unwillingness to take the steps necessary to deal with the problems of disarmament, instead of talking about the need for disarmament and making specious proposals which the USSR does not intend to live up to and knows are unacceptable.

4. The United States Delegation should call on the Soviet Union to cooperate with and take part in the new unified Commission, in an attempt to attain honest and effective regulation, limitation and balanced reduction of all armaments and armed forces, including international control of atomic energy to ensure the prohibition of atomic weapons and the use of atomic energy for peaceful purposes only. The Delegation should emphasize that Soviet actions in this respect will speak louder than Soviet words about their desire for peace.

comment

1. Annex A is basically the United States paper introduced in the Committee of Twelve on May 25, 1951. Changes have been made to take account of comments on the United States paper made by Members of the Committee. These changes are directed towards:

(a) Eliminating the reference to formulating a plan for the regulation of the international traffic in arms (United Kingdom, Turkey).

(b) Enabling the new Commission to obtain advice from experts who are nationals of countries not represented on the Commission (China).

(c) Placing greater emphasis on the importance of the peaceful development of atomic energy, as well as specifically mentioning the prohibition of atomic weapons as an element of international control in this field (United Kingdom, China, Yugoslavia, Canada, India).

(d) Making it clear that, while the United Nations plan for the international control of atomic energy and the prohibition of atomic weapons should continue to serve as the basis for any plan in this field, the new Commission should consider any other plan and be willing to adopt it if better and not less effective and should not prejudge any new plan (Canada, Netherlands, Yugoslavia).

(e) Providing that the new Commission may make reports to both the Security Council and the General Assembly, in order to avoid the difficulty that the reports might be vetoed in the Security Council, as in the past, when the only recourse had been to append the record of the proceedings in the Commission in order to transmit the reports to the General Assembly (United Nations Secretariat).

2. Some opposition to the United States proposal will undoubtedly develop because of the provision in the section on the functions of the new Commission to the effect that the United Nations majority plan for the international control of atomic energy and the prohibition of atomic weapons should continue to serve as the basis for any plan for the control of atomic energy unless and until a better and no less effective system can be devised.

We should make it clear that this is a firm United States position. The Delegation should state that failure to base the new Commission’s work in the atomic energy field on the United Nations plan would in effect deprive the new commission of the benefit of years of careful work on the part of the Atomic Energy Commission. We should point out that the United Nations plan in this field has been approved each year by an overwhelming majority of United Nations Members, actually all the Members except the Soviet bloc (See: Resolution 191 (III) 4 November 1948;⁴ Resolution 299 (IV) 23 November 1949;⁵ “Essentials of Peace” resolution (1949);⁶ and 1950 “Peace Through Deeds” resolution),⁷ The United States Delegation should emphasize the willingness of the United States to consider other plans in this field, without prejudging these plans.

3. The Soviet Union may be expected to introduce language which will attempt to give the new Commission terms of reference to develop plan for the (1/3) general reduction of arms and armed forces and prohibition of atomic weapons, and the implementation of these two objectives, before general regulation, limitation and reduction of all armaments and armed forces, including atomic energy. The Soviets will probably use language which will be apparently similar to that contained in the 13 [14] December 1946 resolution of the General Assembly, No. 41 (I),⁸ since this is the tactic which they adopted in the Committee of Twelve. It will be necessary to demonstrate the difference between the Soviet language and the language of resolution 41(I), the basic difference being that the General Assembly resolution talks of “regulation and reduction” whereas the Soviet language speaks only in terms of “reduction”. Attached hereto as Annex B are the pertinent Soviet amendments to the resolution introduced by the United States in the Committee of Twelve.⁹ These amendments were rejected by the Committee.

The United States Delegation should point out that this Soviet language puts forward concepts which have been rejected in the Atomic Energy Commission, the Commission for Conventional Armaments and each General Assembly. The concepts of “international control of all armaments and armed forces” and “regulation, limitation and balanced reduction” necessarily imply that there must be reduction of all armaments. The reference to “effective international control of atomic energy to the extent necessary to ensure the prohibition of atomic weapons and the use of atomic energy only for peaceful purposes” obviously means that atomic weapons would be prohibited. The Soviet language, however, is designed to force the new commission to work on the basis of the untenable Soviet thesis that the Big Five Powers should reduce their armed forces and armaments and that there should be destruction of all atomic weapons without effective control to ensure prohibition instead of considering the disarmament question as a whole.

The point should be made that the Soviet language would unduly restrict the new unified commission in its examination of the problem, by in effect establishing the way in which the commission must approach the general problems of regulation, limitation and balanced reduction of all armaments and armed forces, including atomic energy. The commission should be left the maximum degree of flexibility in considering and co-ordinating the problems in the atomic and non-atomic fields.

1. Documentation relating to United States participation in the sessions of the United Nations General Assembly, 1945–1965, retired by the Bureau of International Organization Affairs.
2. Post, p. 552.
3. Annex A is not printed. For text of the paper introduced on May 25, see Documents on Disarmament, 1945–1959, vol. I, pp. 271–273; or Department of State Bulletin, June 18, 1951, pp. 992–993.
4. Regarding Resolution 191 (III), see footnote 7, p. 446.
5. For text of Resolution 299 (IV): International Control of Atomic Energy, see Foreign Relations, 1949, vol. i, p. 225.
6. Regarding the “Essentials of Peace” resolution, see footnote 3, p. 518.
7. Regarding the “Peace Through Deeds” resolution, see footnote 1, ibid.
8. For text of Resolution 41(i), Principles Governing the General Regulation and Reduction of Armaments, December 14, 1946, see Foreign Relations, 1946, vol. i, pp. 1099–1102.
9. Annex B is not printed. For the Soviet amendments, see report of the Committee of Twelve, October 23, p. 552.