Disarmament: The Fresh Approach

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A commitment to disarmament as an ultimate goal had been avowed by virtually every nation of the world in the decade following World War II. No international question had been the subject of more extensive negotiation and discussion. No other extended negotiations had shown so little progress, yet continued in spite of it. Persistence in this seemingly hopeless cause reflected the widespread fear of the terrible new weapons resulting from the splitting of the atom, which now placed in the hands of men the means to destroy human civilization. Governments might not always have believed that armaments could be effectively limited or that limitations served their national interests, but public demand for control of armaments was so great that no government could afford to disregard it.1

Earlier Failed Attempts

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The United States played a leading role in these efforts, and, in fact, initiated post-World War II arms control negotiations with the introduction of the "Baruch Plan" at the United Nations on 14 June 1946. Under this plan, the United States offered to give up the military advantage represented by sole possession of atomic weapons, to surrender its stockpile of bombs, and to cease manufacture of additional ones on condition that the United Nations provide an effective control authority and agree to punish violators by procedures not subject to the veto.2

The Soviet Union chose not to accept the Baruch Plan but proposed instead an international convention binding the signatories not to use atomic weapons and to destroy all completed weapons and fissionable material within three months under the supervision of an international control commission empowered to make periodic inspections of declared plants. Punishment of violators would be the responsibility of the UN Security Council and therefore subject to veto. Because of the inadequate provisions for inspection and control, the Soviet pro

posals were totally unacceptable to the United States and its allies. Futile attempts to reconcile the conflicting positions of the two sides dominated negotiations on nuclear arms control for the remainder of the decade.

Negotiations between the two hostile power blocs on the reduction of the level of conventional armaments proved equally unsuccessful. The Soviets, in 1948, had called for across-the-board cuts of one-third by all permanent members of the Security Council, under the supervision of an international control body with vaguely defined powers. The plan was unacceptable to the United States, Great Britain, and France because it would perpetuate the existing Soviet preponderance in such forces. The Western allies countered by proposing a phased reduction of conventional forces to ceilings of 1,000,000 to 1,500,000 for the United States, the Soviet Union, and Communist China, and 700,000 to 750,000 for Great Britain and France, with the armed forces of other countries fixed in relation to those of the great powers. This proposal was unacceptable to the Soviet Union.

In an effort to break the deadlock over both nuclear and nonnuclear arms reduction, Great Britain and France introduced a compromise in the United Nations on 11 June 1954. This Anglo-French plan called for a disarmament treaty binding the signatories to refrain from the use of nuclear weapons except in selfdefense. Controlled reduction of armaments, as long advocated by the Western powers, would follow. Once an effective control organization had been created, armaments and armed forces would be reduced by stages, with each stage beginning only after the control organ announced it was ready to enforce it. In the first phase, overall military manpower would be limited to the levels existing on 31 December 1953, and military spending would be limited to the amount spent in calendar year 1953. In the second phase, one-half of the agreed reductions of conventional forces would be carried out, to be followed by cessation of the manufacture of nuclear weapons. In the third and final phase, the remaining agreed reductions in conventional forces would be imposed, followed by the elimination of all nuclear weapons and the application of all nuclear materials to peaceful purposes.

The immediate response of the two superpowers to this plan was favorable. The US delegate to the UN Disarmament Commission, while not endorsing every detail, termed it a distinct advance in the direction of a workable disarmament program, and the Soviet foreign minister announced that his government would accept it as the basis for discussion and negotiation.

A Review of US Arms Control Policy

or the United States, this apparent major shift in Soviet arms control policy indicated a need to review its own policies and bring them up to date. Existing US arms control policy was stated in NSC 112, a paper approved by President Truman on 19 July 1951 and not revised since. It had been adopted at a time when the US and Soviet positions were so far apart that any agreement to make a significant reduction in armaments and military forces seemed remote. But now

that some form of agreement seemed possible, a review of basic US arms control policy, which was long overdue in any case, took on a new urgency.

NSC 112 established as the goal of US disarmament programs the lowering of the level of armaments to the point where an initial aggression would be unlikely to succeed, thereby discouraging states from resorting to armed aggression as a means of achieving national objectives and making possible a peaceful resolution of differences between the US and Soviet blocs. The policy paper did not specify the level to which armaments would have to be reduced to achieve the desired results. But it did specify that international control of nuclear weapons must be considered to be inseparably related to the international regulation of all other types of armaments and must be based on the Baruch Plan or some equally effective procedure. Turning to the tactics by which arms reduction could be achieved, NSC 112 offered no such comprehensive plan as the one later proposed by the British and French. It merely recommended an initial move consisting of step-bystep disclosure and verification of all armed forces and armaments, progressing from the least to the most sensitive information.3

At the time of the Soviet announcement, the US Government had made very little progress toward a new disarmament policy. Attempts to revise NSC 112, as ordered by the NSC on 9 September 1953, had run afoul of irreconcilable disagreements among the members of the special committee, consisting of the Secretaries of State and Defense and the Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, appointed for the purpose. The result was that each member was preparing a statement of his position for submission to the NSC.4

The Defense Department position paper had been developed from a draft completed by Major General Herbert B. Loper, the Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Atomic Energy, on 27 August 1954. After revision to incorporate the views of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Secretary of Defense, and the Services, the Defense position paper was submitted to the Secretary of State and the Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission on 25 January 1955.

The Department of Defense believed that to continue current armament trends constituted less of a risk to the security of the United States than any currently attainable disarmament agreement. In view of continuing communist ambitions for world domination and the methods being employed to attain it, any disarmament scheme not including effective regulation and control machinery would be disastrous for the free world. Effective control, which would have to include inspection and supervision extending into the internal affairs of the Soviet Union, would be totally unacceptable to the USSR. Even if the Soviet Union accepted unlimited inspection, no conceivable system could ensure the elimination of nuclear weapons from the armaments of countries that had previously produced them. It was technically feasible, however, to control additional production of nuclear weapons, if the political obstacles to effective inspection could be overcome.

A step-by-step plan, beginning with disclosure and verification of armed forces and armaments and progressing through phased reductions, was also unacceptable to the Defense Department. Disclosure and verification would give a great advantage to a potential aggressor by revealing the other country's hid

den and most important military assets without accomplishing any real reductions or providing adequately for control. It was feared that entering into a stepby-step agreement would also create a false sense of security in the free world and weaken the resolution of the Western alliance.

In spite of the liabilities in an attainable disarmament scheme, the Defense Department favored the continuation of disarmament negotiations for two basic reasons: to expose to US allies and the neutralist nations the true nature of the Soviet position in international relations; and to retain the leadership of the free world in negotiations that would continue in any event because of the universal fear of nuclear warfare. By exercising such leadership the United States might prevent other free nations from succumbing to blandishments designed to entrap them into disarmament agreements based on promises or ineffectual control schemes.5

The State Department position, as expressed in a paper forwarded to the Defense Department and the Atomic Energy Commission on 7 February 1955, was that adequately safeguarded disarmament was preferable to a continuation of current armament trends. If unchecked by some form of disarmament agreement, the Soviet Union would achieve a nuclear capability to damage the United States so severely that it could not hope to achieve any rational political end from a war in which nuclear weapons were employed. The capability of each side to destroy the other could not be counted on to ensure a durable peace or continued security. An aggressor might launch a nuclear strike owing to misjudgment of his chances for success or to fear that he was himself about to become the victim of such an attack. In addition, the increasing reliance by both sides on nuclear weapons would enlarge the likelihood that any armed conflict might develop into nuclear war. Under these conditions, the United States might hesitate to protect areas not considered to be absolutely vital, with the result that the free world might suffer piecemeal reduction.

The State Department acknowledged that a disarmament plan could not be based solely on mutual trust and that therefore an effective system of inspection and verification was necessary. The Department's paper did not, however, attempt to assess the chances for achieving an effective inspection agreement with the Soviet Union, although it did concede that there was no way to tell in advance how well an inspection plan would actually function.

To put a disarmament plan into effect, the State Department recommended a step-by-step rather than a comprehensive approach. Such a plan would have the advantage that each succeeding step would be taken only after the preceding one was operating successfully. To negotiate a comprehensive plan, on the other hand, would take a long time at best because all issues would have to be settled in advance. Failure during years of negotiation with the Soviet Union to make any progress toward a comprehensive agreement indicated that achievement of such a disarmament pact was highly improbable.

A first step could be, for example, a ban on the production of nuclear fuels, since this measure would preserve the existing US superiority in nuclear weapons. But the State Department recommended further study and review before adopting changes in disarmament policy. This effort should proceed

under the direction of a person with outstanding qualifications, who had no other responsibilities."

The National Security Council took up the conflicting views of the Departments of State and Defense on 10 February 1955. Unable to resolve the substantive issues, the Council adopted the State Department's procedural proposal and recommended to the President that he designate an individual of outstanding qualifications as his special representative to conduct on a full-time basis a further review of US policy on control of armaments, reporting his findings and recommendations to the National Security Council. To assist him in the task, the special assistant would have one qualified adviser each from the Departments of State and Defense and the Atomic Energy Commission, and a panel of three or more consultants from outside the government. President Eisenhower approved the recommendation and, on 19 March 1955, named Harold E. Stassen his Special Assistant for Disarmament.7

The Soviet Proposal of 10 May 1955

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efore Mr. Stassen could complete his review, the Soviet Union made a new proposal, which coincided on many points with the Anglo-French plan of 11 June 1954. The plan that the Soviets introduced in the UN Disarmament Subcommittee on 10 May 1955 called for a step-by-step reduction of conventional forces and elimination of nuclear weapons and for an immediate freeze on the size of armed forces and military expenditures. It provided for a reduction of armaments in two stages, with 50 percent of the reduction of armed forces taking place in the first phase.

Although these points substantially duplicated provisions of the AngloFrench plan, there were differences as well. The Soviet plan provided a specific timetable for the completion of arms reduction and control measures-the first stage to be completed in 1956 and the second stage in 1957. Also, the Soviet plan set specific ceilings on the armed forces of the signatories: 1 million to 1.5 million for the United States, the Soviet Union, and Communist China; 650,000 for Britain and France. And most important, the Soviet plan offered nothing resembling the control organ with adequate powers desired by the West; it still called for enforcement by the UN Security Council. However, the Soviets did make an important concession regarding the inspection machinery and procedures. To their earlier proposals for fixed inspection posts at major ports, railway junctions, airfields, and highways, the Soviets now added a provision that control officials would carry out inspections on a continuing basis, to the extent necessary to ensure implementation of the disarmament plan and would have unimpeded access at all times to all objects of control.

The Soviet Union also included in its proposal of 10 May a provision for the withdrawal of Soviet, US, British, and French troops from Germany to within their national frontiers. This proposal was obviously unacceptable to the Western powers.8