On Wednesday, October 11, the Secretary sent to you for your approval a
memorandum entitled “US Position for the General Assembly on the Nuclear
Test Ban” which represented the economists on this issue of the
Committee of Principals which met Tuesday evening.
Attachment
October 12,
1961
SUBJECT
- Nuclear Testing and the United
Nations
1. Last Saturday I sent to the White House and the State Department a
proposed Presidential statement in which you would have invited the
Soviet Union, first, immediately to discontinue all nuclear testing,
and, second, to conclude within thirty days a treaty prohibiting all
nuclear weapons tests. You would state at same time that the U.S.
was going to prepare for atmospheric testing, and if your offer was
not accepted within one week, the U.S. would be obliged to start
testing when ready.
2. At a meeting in Washington Tuesday, the Committee of Principals
decided against using this approach and also against taking any
initiative to renew the Kennedy-MacMillan proposal that fall-out testing be
banned.
3. On behalf of all the agencies concerned, the Secretary of State
has now recommended a new policy under which we would continue to be
willing to negotiate a treaty for a controlled test ban, whether for
all types of tests or for atmospheric tests only, but in view of the
Soviet test series we would not agree to a moratorium on testing
during the period of negotiations.
4. I am told that at the meeting of the Committee of Principals it
was the consensus that preparations should be made for atmospheric
testing, but that such tests could not take place for several
months. The proposal that we test in the atmosphere almost at once,
for demonstration rather than technical purposes, was rejected—thank
god!
5. I think that one more “last chance” challenge to negotiate a
treaty within 30 days, with a joint test suspension during that
limited period only, would be extremely useful in dealing here with
the enthusiasm for the Indian proposal (to ban all tests, with no
controls) and with
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the skepticism about the U.S.-U.K. resolution
(to negotiate forthwith a treaty along the lines of our Geneva
draft).
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6. However, I am not questioning the decision taken in Washington
this week. What I do urgently recommend is an
immediate statement from you or me offering to sign the present
draft treaty or to return now to the negotiation table, either in
Geneva or perhaps right here in New York. We would make clear that
we were making preparations for further tests of our own; express
our regret that Soviet actions make them necessary, as a matter of
national security; and agree to stop as soon as a treaty is
signed.
7. I am not proposing that we should stop our preparations for
testing in the atmosphere. I think we should be completely frank in
stating that these preparations are going forward. Indeed, the
preparations may themselves serve as some incentive toward getting
the Soviets back into negotiations. But since we cannot usefully
test in the atmosphere for several months, I think we have
everything to gain and nothing to lose by using the intervening time
to conduct our educational campaign that stresses (a) our
willingness to conclude a treaty, (b) Soviet obstruction and
duplicity, and (c) the contrast between Soviet unconcern about the
dangers of fall-out tests and U.S. reluctance to follow suit.
8. In summary, these are the reasons why I think a new offer to
negotiate a treaty would prove useful:
(a) It will be a further boost for the disarmament initiative
you took in your great speech here in the UN and it will show that the United
States is supremely desirous of putting an end to nuclear
weapons testing, with all its health hazards, its implications
in terms of ever more destructive weapons, and its general
exacerbating effect on international tensions.
(b) The offer would give us something other than a purely
negative line to use as a basis for combating proposals for an
uncontrolled, uninspected and unlimited test moratorium. While
the present position that test cessation is possible only under
a treaty with controls is thoroughly reasonable, it commands
indifferent support in the General Assembly. Ninety-six of the
100 members of the UN are
innocent bystanders in the nuclear arms race. Fearing that the
health and safety of their peoples are jeopardised by continued
testing, they are not interested in the rights and wrongs of the
situation, or in who tested first. They will make a passionate
appeal that the tests be stopped. If we must test for security
reasons, it would help to dramatize the earnestness of our
effort to avoid test resumption before we reached the point of
no return.
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(c) Our offer should win votes for our resolution and will
moderate criticism we will certainly get for not agreeing to an
Indian-type resolu
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tion. More than that, it will improve our
standing with respect to other major political issues about to
come up in the General Assembly. I need mention only the Chinese
representation problem, the problem of the Secretary-General,
and, if it comes into the UN,
the problem of Berlin. In dealing with those difficult matters,
it is surely best for us to appear as an earnest seeker of ways
to diminish tensions.
(d) The renewed offer would focus attention on and dramatize our
advocacy of a full nuclear test ban treaty with controls; it
would greatly assist the process of public education we had
intended in any event to carry out here at the UN.
9. In your press conference yesterday, you did indicate U.S.
willingness to negotiate for a test ban treaty, and your conviction
that a “moratorium” during negotiations is no longer an acceptable
procedure as far as the United States is concerned. But the “news”
in your statement was the possibility of atmospheric testing. My
suggestion for a formal renewal of our treaty offer is to get the
public’s attention focussed once again on our desire to negotiate so
as to stop tests, rather than on the melancholy necessity to
continue them.
10. If you prefer to say no more on this subject, I would welcome
your authorization to make a statement here, within a very few days,
along the lines suggested in this memorandum. One way or the other,
a formal U.S. announcement should be made very soon, before the
Soviets complete their present test series.
Attachment
DRAFT STATEMENT BY THE
PRESIDENT
Since the Soviet Union resumed nuclear weapons testing in the
atmosphere on September 2, it has detonated more than twenty fallout
producing nuclear devices. Some of these devices have released
energy equivalent to millions of tons of TNT.
The Soviet test series threatens to intensify competition in the
development of more and more deadly nuclear weapons. Thus these
tests increase the possibility of ultimate disaster for all
mankind.
There is only one safe and sure way to stop nuclear weapons tests and
to stop them quickly. That is to complete a treaty prohibiting all
nuclear weapons tests under effective controls.
In the last two years the negotiations at Geneva made significant
progress toward such a treaty. The United States stands ready to
resume these negotiations for such a treaty today. It will devote
all its resources to the quickest possible conclusion of these
negotiations. If the Soviet Union would do the same, there is no
reason why a nuclear test ban treaty with effective controls cannot
be signed within thirty days.
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My negotiators are ready now to sit down at the table with Soviet and
British representatives for this purpose. Until there is a treaty
and tests can be stopped, the United States, as a responsible
nation, must prepare and take the actions that may be necessary to
protect its own security and that of the world community.