TREATY OUTLINE ON ARMS CONTROL

TUESDAY, APRIL 10, 1962

U.S. SENATE,

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS,
Washington, DC.

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 4:30 p.m., in room F-53, U.S. Capitol Building, Hon. John Sparkman presiding. Present: Chairman Fulbright and Senators Sparkman, Humphrey, Gore, Hickenlooper, and Aiken.

Also present: Mr. Marcy and Mr. Tillman of the committee staff. Senator SPARKMAN. I think we might as well get started. Senator Fulbright will not be here; I am afraid not many other Senators will be here, because they are running back and forth between here and the Senate. This is the time of day most of them try to get to sign their mail.

Here is Senator Aiken. Come in, George. We are just about to get started. We can do it now on a bipartisan basis. We will proceed. Go right ahead.

STATEMENT OF HON. WILLIAM C. FOSTER, DIRECTOR, ARMS CONTROL AND DISARMAMENT AGENCY, ACCOMPANIED BY GEORGE BUNN, GENERAL COUNSEL

Mr. FOSTER. Mr. Chairman, this is in connection with the items which we are presenting at Geneva to the 18-Nation Disarmament Conference. We felt that you should be brought up to date on where we stand on certain parts of this and where we plan to go. You will recall that the Soviet presented a so-called draft treaty to the Conference early in the session at Geneva, and we had presented our September 25 program, both directed toward the ultimate objective of general and complete disarmament. We had felt that the best way to progress was to get the broadest measure of agreement on measures leading to general and complete disarmament, and reported that to the committee before we went to Geneva on March 10.

The Soviets have refused to, in effect, discuss the situation in these terms, and have said that since they have the only draft treaty, we should confine our discussions to a proposal working toward a treaty. Therefore, it seemed wise, at least from a tactical viewpoint, to put the substantive items which are in our September 25 program in the form of a draft treaty outline in order to offset this tactical approach which they have made, and to put this on an equivalent basis because many of the new nations there, the eight non-aligned nations, could not understand why we are unwilling to talk about the Soviet draft treaty.

DRAFT TREATY OUTLINE

So we have been working toward a draft treaty outline, and it was that, in particular, we wanted to discuss with you.

This, of course, is purely tentative. It is for purposes of discussion. It is for purposes of educating the members of this Conference to the complexities of what we are attempting to do. For the most part, it sticks almost completely to the September 25 program, and it then attempts to develop in more detail the items which have been covered in that September 25 program.

It begins with a preamble; it includes a set of objectives and principles which set the background for stage 1. It then progresses into stage 2 and stage 3. But the point about both the program and the proposed outline is that there is no time limit set for the overall achievement of the final objectives.

There was a time limit set as a possibility for the first stage in Secretary Rusk's first statement to the Conference. He said that we presumed it would be possible to achieve the objectives of stage 1 within 3 years.

ACROSS THE BOARD CUT IN MAJOR ARMAMENTS

In this draft treaty outline, which is still in the discussion stage within the executive branch, we did set forth an objective of a 30 percent cut across the board for various types of major armaments. The details of that, of course, are still to be negotiated out, both within the U.S. Government and ultimately, of course, also as between ourselves and the other countries at the Conference.

The treaty outline was felt essential as a device and also as a discipline under which we would think out for ourselves exactly the implications of some of these activities. Naturally, it would only be in the form of a discussion and an agreement over there on the general procedures, and it would have to come back to you gentlemen if we ever got to an agreement, to the point of an agreement, between ourselves and the Russians in the form of a treaty.

There have been some questions raised as to whether this is a 9year suggestion of moving toward complete elimination of national armies. That is not the case.

We did set stage 1 of 3 years. We have set very definite provisions for a transition between stages. During that transition one would have to check whether all the items which were presumed to take place in stage 1 had taken place, whether the preparations for stage 2 had been been adequately set up; whether the international measures or mechanisms had been established to take care of the next requirements.

Senator GORE. To make the checks.

NOT A 9-YEAR PROGRAM

Mr. FOSTER. And we had not set a time limit publicly for either stage 2 or stage 3. So this could not be, as Lord Home said in one of his comments before the Conference, that the U.S. plan was a 9year program. That is not the case. We do not know how many years it would be, because all these things would have to transpire before it would be possible to shift from one stage to another.

It is entirely within the realm of possibility that the third stage, in the best of all possible worlds, if everything had worked perfectly up to that point, it might be actually shorter than 3 years or it might be longer than 3 years. We do not attempt to define that at this point in time, because it is impossible to look that far ahead and see what would have happened.

It is fair to state, however, that we never in any sense have said that we were offering the 9-year treaty to remove the national armies and armaments of the United States. That is not a correct statement.

Senator HUMPHREY. Mr. Foster-Mr. Chairman, may I interrupt for just a moment to clarify a point for this record?

Mr. FOSTER. Yes, sir.

Senator HUMPHREY. AS Senator Gore interjected a moment ago, after stage 1, which was contemplated to be a 3-year period, the checking that is requried may call for a considerable amount of time; is that not true?

Mr. FOSTER. It is true, and we would not proceed until all of the things that are set forth have been suitably disposed of.

Senator HUMPHREY. That is true also of stage 2.

Mr. FOSTER. That is true of the transition between stage 2 and stage 3.

Senator HUMPHREY. Under the best of circumstances or almost under controlled laboratory conditions, speaking in scientific terms, the 9 years was a figure that would respond to the best of circumstances; isn't that about right?

Mr. FOSTER. I think it is apt to be a little better than the best of circumstances because that might allow for no transition time, so that you might have something from 91⁄2 to 10 years in the best of circumstances, I would suggest.

BILATERAL DISARMAMENT

Senator HUMPHREY. All of this is at least bilateral and not unilateral, isn't that correct?

Mr. FOSTER. Yes, this is true.

Senator SPARKMAN. It is more than that; it is multilateral.
Senator HUMPHREY. I said it is at least bilateral.

Mr. FOSTER. Yes, it is at least bilateral, and it might be, and we assume it would be, multilateral.

Senator HUMPHREY. The reason I mention that is that the point has been made that our policy is a unilateral disarmament, and that obviously is not the case, is it?

Mr. FOSTER. Not at all. There is no kind of unilateral disarmament in this plan whatsoever. Each stage would be balanced, each stage would be phased. The design of anything that would be done would be such that the relative military security of each side would not be harmed as you went down.

Senator HUMPHREY. But each stage relates to comparable action on the part of other nations and, particularly, the Soviet Union; does it not?

Mr. FOSTER. That is correct.

Senator HUMPHREY. In other words, this is not a self-enacting program. It requires a compensatory action on the part of other participants, and in this instance primarily the Soviet Union.

Mr. FOSTER. That is correct, and each of these opposite actions would need objective international verification to make sure that it had taken place.

AN INTERNATIONAL PEACE FORCE

Senator AIKEN. This objective is to reach a time when the United Nations would have the only sizable armed force in the world?

Mr. FOSTER. There would be an international peace force, Senator Aiken; this is the purpose.

Senator AIKEN. I am a little ahead of you, perhaps this armed force of the United Nations would be complying with a majority vote of the United Nations?

Mr. FOSTER. Well, there are several phases.

Senator SPARKMAN. Or the Security Council.
Mr. FOSTER. The Security Council.

Senator AIKEN. The veto is still there. Why not the General Assembly? When we went into the Congo, we went into there under the General Assembly Resolution.

Mr. FOSTER. The first stage would not depend in any degree upon an international peace force; that is stage 1. The ultimate would be an international force, and at that point, frankly, we have left that a little bit to be an agreed procedure. In the first stage you would set the background for an international peace force which would begin to build up in the second stage.

Senator AIKEN. I see.

Mr. FOSTER. In the second stage, there would be a supervision of that by a conference of the signatories to any kind of a treaty, a council and an administrator.

These, however, would all be under the direction of and under the control of the Security Council. The Security Council, unless it

Senator AIKEN. You are giving all the power to the Security Council?

Mr. FOSTER. They have no power in this until it gets well into the second stage.

Senator AIKEN. Would that require an amendment to the Charter?

Mr. FOSTER. I think it well might.

Senator AIKEN. I see. In that case, the Security Council might function; otherwise it would not.

COMMUNIST CHINA AND THE TREATY

Senator SPARKMAN. One question that puzzles me is, you say that all nations will have to agree to the treaty or, at least, you anticipate all nations agreeing to the treaty. How in the world are you ever going to bring Communist China into this, or suppose-Mr. FOSTER. Well, stage 1——

Senator SPARKMAN. Maybe this is anticipating by 10, 15, 20 years, but suppose Communist China bucks against it, and refuses to be covered by it, then what happens?

Mr. FOSTER. We had prepared this plan on the basis that Communist China would not necessarily, and probably would not, be in stage 1. We would not move into stage 2, however, unless Communist China agreed to the conditions that the other nations that were signatories to a treaty had accepted for themselves.

Senator HICKENLOOPER. With whom would China agree?

Mr. FOSTER. They would have to agree with the international disarmament organization, the international peace force, and the other signatories to the treaty.

Senator AIKEN. That would be selected by the signatories to the treaty?

Mr. FOSTER. Yes, sir.

RECOGNITION OF CHINA

Senator HICKENLOOPER. That would presuppose, then, recognition of Red China?

Mr. FOSTER. I am not sure of that, Senator.

Senator HICKENLOOPER. As a de jure nation.

Mr. FOSTER. It is conceivable that you could do this without recognition of Red China by the United Nations if they would be willing to accept the obligations of the treaty, which would have its own independent conference, council, and administrator for the verification procedures and for the establishment of the peace force.

Senator SPARKMAN. We made some kind of an agreement for the return of prisoners without their recognition.

Mr. FOSTER. Yes, sir. This is one of the problems, and we recognize it as such.

Senator SPARKMAN. And in negotiations on Indochina, we did not participate in the conference except as observers.

Senator HICKENLOOPER. Certain nations have recognized Red China.

Senator SPARKMAN. But we were part of the prisoner return. We actively led in the conduct of the proceedings.

Mr. FOSTER. One of my colleagues, Ambassador [Jacob] Beam, of course, has been negotiating with the Chinese for the last 4 years for the return of prisoners, from his position.

Senator SPARKMAN. And Alexis Johnson for 3 years prior to that. Mr. FOSTER. That is correct. There have been hundreds of meetings on this and, of course, they have participated in the discussions about Laos in Geneva, so this can be done without recognition.

Senator SPARKMAN. Of course, if we approach a realistic disarmament or arms control program, the conditions may open up considerably.

Mr. FOSTER. We conceive that it might take a couple of years to get agreement between ourselves and the Soviet Union on the kind of treaty as proposed in the outline on which we are working. This would be July 1964. A lot of things might happen between now and then.

If the first stage took 3 years, and if we could, and we believe we could, benefit from the first stage without China's being part of it, 5 years or more is a time in which many things could develop. A