2. The Soviet delegation points out that the Eisenhower proposal refers solely to the territory of the Soviet Union and of the United States and would not cover the forces of these two countries elsewhere, or the forces of our Allies.

It is quite true that both the Soviet Union and the United States have substantial military forces beyond their sovereign border. Certainly, the Government of the Soviet Union will not deny that it maintains substantial forces in East Germany, Poland, Hungary, Rumania, and other places and locations. However, the most important forces of both the Soviet Union and the United States are located within their sovereign borders.

The overwhelming portion of the forces that would be inevitably involved in an attack are located in both instances within the sovereign borders. This, then, is the place to begin. It is the place where a beginning can be made promptly because it would not require the sovereign decision of many nations or raise the problems involved in negotiating agreements with some 40 to 50 other countries.

The Governments of France and the United Kingdom have already associated themselves with the Eisenhower proposal. Furthermore, if the Eisenhower proposal is accepted by the Soviet Union, the United States would be prepared to proceed promptly, so far as it is concerned, to negotiate both with other sovereign states involved and with the Soviet Union for the appropriate extension on a reciprocal, equitable basis of the Eisenhower proposal and the Bulganin control posts to overseas bases, and to the forces of other countries.

Of course, President Eisenhower realized that what he proposed here last July was only a beginning. I recall his exact words. He said, "what I propose, I assure you, would be but a beginning." 1

But it is the beginning, the initial breakthrough, that is often decisive. As President Eisenhower emphasized, the spirit of peace would more surely reign and further disarmament more surely be achieved if mutual understanding and reciprocal openness existed as between the two countries which have the greatest stockpiles of atomic weapons.

It is that moral aspect of President Eisenhower's proposal which the Soviet Union seems entirely to have missed.

3. In the third place, objection is made to what is called "enormous expenditures" which would be required to carry out aerial photography. It is quite true that there would be considerable expense and that planes and technical facilities might have to be diverted from purposes of war to purposes of peace. The United States, I may say, is prepared to do that. I cannot believe that any country would really refuse to embark on a great project for peace because it required a diversion of resources from war.

4. It is further argued that President Eisenhower's proposal does not provide for "the setting up of control posts at ports, railway junctions," and so forth. I am surprised to hear this argument

1 Statement of July 21, 1955; supra, doc. 30.

made after Chairman Bulganin has received President Eisenhower's letter of October 11, in which President Eisenhower said:

I have not forgotten your proposal having to do with stationing inspection teams at key points in our countries, and if you feel this would help to create the better spirit I refer to, we could accept that too.

5. Finally, it is argued that the Eisenhower plan would increase the risk of war because it would give countries information about the military installations of each other and thus enable an aggressor to make a more effective surprise attack.

I know that the Soviet Union has ample information about the United States and about our military and industrial dispositions. And the United States is not totally ignorant of the Soviet Union. Both of us, I surmise, know enough to attack. What is lacking is the deterrent to attack which would come if preparations for attack can be detected so that the aggressor does not have the benefit of surprise.

That is the way in which the Eisenhower proposal would work powerfully for peace.

SOVIET POSITION ON AERIAL PHOTOGRAPHY

We do not ignore the fact that the Soviet Union, although rejecting President Eisenhower's proposal, as he made it, indicates that it would accept a concept of aerial photography as one of the forms of control to be considered, as the Soviet Union puts it, "at the concluding stage of the implementation of measures to reduce armaments and prohibit atomic weapons."2

We accept this statement of the Soviet Union as a welcome advance over prior Soviet positions. We are, nevertheless, grievously disappointed that the Soviet Union now rejects President Eisenhower's proposal as a beginning step to lessen tension between our countries and open the path to further steps for inspection and control, and reduction of armament based thereon.

Perhaps, however, the Soviet delegation's statement of yesterday does not represent the last word of the Soviet Union.

I recall the initial negative reaction of the Soviet Union toward President Eisenhower's atoms-for-peace proposal made in December 1953 before the United Nations. I also remember that by July 1955 the Soviet Union had come to accept in principle that proposal.

I still hope that there will be a similar evolution of Soviet thinking with reference to President Eisenhower's proposal for exchanges of blueprints and reciprocal aerial photography, although I hope that the time lapse will be shorter because time presses.

SOVIETS' ATOMIC PROPOSALS

I turn now to the proposal introduced yesterday by the Soviet delegation on this topic of disarmament, a proposal which in the

1 Supra, doc. 31.

3

2 The Geneva Meeting of Foreign Ministers, p. 183.

3 Ibid., pp. 184-186.

main is a duplication of prior proposals made on various occasions. I deal with this proposal myself only in so far as it deals with atomic matters. There are four items with reference to atomic matters.

One is that "as one of the first measures for the execution of the program for the reduction of armaments and the prohibition of atomic weapons, states processing atomic and hydrogen weapons pledge themselves to discontinue tests of these weapons."

Let me say that, if agreement can be reached to eliminate or limit nuclear weapons under proper safeguards, the United States would be prepared to agree to corresponding restrictions on the testing of such

weapons.

Then there are two rather similar items, one of which suggests that the four powers would pledge themselves "not to be the first to use atomic and hydrogen weapons," and the other of which suggests that they should "pledge themselves not to use nuclear weapons.

These suggestions are subject to the grave defect that they contemplate only promises.

It is basic in the United States policy not to allow its security to be dependent upon promises and agreements which may prove illusory. We had this week a grave disillusionment when we sought fulfillment of the Soviet agreement that Germany should be reunified by free elections.

It can hardly be expected that the United States would depend upon pledges which cannot be relied upon and for the performance of which no dependable controls are provided.

We further point out that if a war begins it will be because some nation has violated the solemn pledge contained in the charter of the United Nations, and found in many other international agreements, to refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force in any manner inconsistent with the charter. If a nation breaks that pledge, how can we assume that it will live up to its pledge not to use atomic weapons, or not to be the first to use them? The United States has agreed not to use force against the Soviet Union in violation of the charter of the United Nations. But if the Soviet Union does not believe that we shall live by that pledge, why does it want more pledges? And vice versa?

NEED FOR "ATMOSPHERE OF TRUST"

With respect to the proposal that all atomic weapons shall be eliminated, I call attention to the powerful statement made by the Soviet Union in its May 10 proposals, to the effect that there can be no assurance of the elimination of atomic weapons. I should like to read from that statement:

There are possibilities beyond the reach of international control for evading this control and for organizing the clandestine manufacture of atomic and hydrogen weapons, even if there is a formal agreement on international control. In such a situation the security of the states signatory to the international convention cannot be guaranteed, since the possibility would be open to a potential

For the full text of the Soviet proposals, see Department of State Bulletin, May 30, 1955, pp. 900-905.

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aggressor to accumulate stocks of atomic and hydrogen weapons for a surprise atomic attack on peace-loving states.

Until an atmosphere of trust has been created in relations between states, any agreement on the institution of international control can only serve to lull the vigilance of the peoples. It will create a false sense of security, while in reality there will be a danger of the production of atomic and hydrogen weapons and hence the threat of surprise attack and the unleashing of an atomic war with all its appalling consequences for the people.

It is the danger so graphically portrayed by the Soviet Union that creates the problem with which we are all wrestling. It will, we assume, come again before the United Nations disarmament subcommittee. We here are obviously unable to solve that problem, nor are we prepared to anticipate what will be the conclusions of the scientific experts who are dealing with the matter.

1

It will be recalled that in the proposal which the three Western powers submitted yesterday we called for "continued scientific search by each state, with appropriate consultation between governments, for methods which might be derived from evolving scientific knowledge that would make possible a thoroughly effective inspection and control system of nuclear weapons material as part of a disarmament program covering all kinds of armaments."

It cannot reasonably be expected that we here shall agree to an elimination of nuclear weapons in the face of the difficulties and dangers to which the Soviet Union has itself directed our attention and which create a situation such that-in the words of the Soviet Union-we cannot be assured "until an atmosphere of trust has been created in relations between states." We can only regret that at this conference the position of the Soviet Union has brought no progress, but retrogression, as regards "an atmosphere of trust." It is more than ever inevitable that the United States should adhere closely to the position which President Eisenhower set forth in his address of July 25, 1955:

In the matter of disarmament, the American Government believes that an effective disarmament system can be reached only if at its base there is an effective reciprocal inspection and overall supervision system, one in which we can have confidence and each side can know that the other side is carrying out its commitments.2

I have given the reasons why the United States cannot entertain disarmament proposals from the Soviet Union which are predicated upon mutual trust and confidence, which does not now exist. We urge that the Soviet Union realistically accept that fact and that through the United Nations disarmament subcommittee we develop as rapidly and as fully as possible an effective reciprocal inspection and overall supervision system. Then we would, indeed, have a basis for the reduction of armaments which we all want and which would enable the resources of the world more fully to be dedicated to the welfare of mankind.

1 Supra.

2 For the full text of this address, see supra, pp. 111-114.

34. PROPOSAL FOR CONCLUSION OF AN INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION (TREATY) ON THE REDUCTION OF ARMAMENTS AND THE PROHIBITION OF ATOMIC, HYDROGEN AND OTHER WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION: Resolution 914 (X) of the United Nations General Assembly, December 16, 19551

The General Assembly,

Recalling its resolution 808 (IX) of 4 November 1954,2 which established the conclusion that a further effort should be made to reach agreement on comprehensive and co-ordinated proposals to be embodied in a draft international disarmament convention providing for:

(a) The regulation, limitation and major reduction of all armed forces and all conventional armaments,

(b) The total prohibition of the use and manufacture of nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction of every type, together with the conversion of existing stocks of nuclear weapons for peaceful purposes,

(c) The establishment of effective international control, through a control organ with rights, powers and functions adequate to guarantee the effective observance of the agreed reductions of all armaments and armed forces and the prohibition of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction, and to ensure the use of atomic energy for peaceful purposes only,

The whole programme to be such that no State would have cause to fear that its security was endangered,

Expressing the hope that efforts to relax international tensions, to promote mutual confidence and to develop co-operation among States, such as the Geneva Conference of the Heads of Government of the four Powers, the Bandung Conference of Asian and African countries and the United Nations tenth anniversary commemorative meeting at San Francisco, will prove effective in promoting world peace,

Desirous of contributing to the lowering of international tensions, the strengthening of confidence between States, the removal of the threat of war and the reduction of the burden of armaments,

Convinced therefore of the need to continue to seek agreement on a comprehensive programme for disarmament which will promote international peace and security with the least diversion for armaments of the world's human and economic resources,

Welcoming the progress which has been made towards agreement on objectives during the meetings in 1955 of the Sub-Committee of the Disarmament Commission,

Noting that agreement has not yet been reached on the rights, powers and functions of a control system, which is the keystone of

1 U.N. General Assembly, Official Records, Tenth Session, Supplement No. 19 (A/3116), pp. 5-6.

2 Ibid., Ninth Session, Supplement No. 21 (A/2890), pp. 3–4.