Foreign Relations of the United States, 1955–1957, Regulation of Armaments; Atomic Energy, Volume XX

151. Letter From the President’s Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Anderson) to the President’s Deputy Special Assistant (Peaslee)¹

Washington, August 24, 1956.

Dear Amos: Thank you for your letter of August 15 and the memorandum to the members of the National Security Council which accompanied it.²

I particularly appreciate your invitation to comment on it. Both because of the frequent attention the National Security Council has given to this subject over the past eighteen months and because of my own belief in the profound importance of this subject, I have followed with great interest the recent work of Governor Stassen, yourself and the President’s Special Committee on Disarmament Problems.

It appears to me that there exists a basic stumbling block which at present prevents progress toward the type of policy decisions which Governor Stassen and you have had in mind. Furthermore, a reading of Governor Stassen’s June 29 memorandum and the agency replies it called forth³ suggests to me that even any fundamental consideration of a change in our current disarmament policies is also rendered unlikely until this obstacle is removed.

I refer to the lack to this day, for presentation to the Council, of any interdepartmentally agreed inspection system. Until the responsible departments have agreed on the precise characteristics of such a system, assured themselves of its desirability and feasibility, and of the practicability of its reciprocal adoption by the United States and the Soviet Union, I would suggest that it will remain well nigh impossible to proceed toward major policy decisions in this area. The Council has never considered an inspection system, agreed upon intergovernmentally, which deals both with the problem of great surprise attack and the ICBM.

Since I understand that the work of the Task Forces⁴ has virtually ceased in this area, you might wish to seek guidance from the President on the manner in which an interdepartmentally agreed inspection system could best be developed and presented to the Council for consideration.

Sincerely,

Dillon

1. Source: Department of State, Disarmament Files: Lot 58 D 133, Disarmament Policy. Top Secret.
2. No August 15 letter from Peaslee to Anderson has been found in the Eisenhower Library or Department of State files. A memorandum from Peaslee to members of the NSC, August 17, transmitted a memorandum from Peaslee to members of the President’s Special Committee on Disarmament Problems, August 15; see footnote 1, Document 149.
3. For Stassen’s memorandum to the President, June 29, see Document 143. Comments on this memorandum by the AEC, Defense, and JCS are summarized in Annex A attached to Peaslee’s memorandum to the members of the President’s Special Committee on Disarmament Problems, August 15.
4. See Document 78. The agenda and summary minutes of a later meeting of the combined task force groups on May 29 are not printed. (Department of State, Disarmament Files: Lot 58 D 133, Inspection—Task Force)