The Quest for Disarmament
WADSWORTH, JAMES J.
'THE GREATEST PROBLEM THAT MAN HAS YET TO SOLVE' The Quest for Disarmament By James J. Wadsworth On September 20, after four months of intermittent meetings in Washington, Moscow and New...
...and the USSR hold similar views, why have the two parties regularly failed to achieve real' disarmament...
...I have even heard veteran observers of the disarmament wars, impressed by the progress achieved despite the cold war's increased tempo, call the September 20 statement "amazing...
...A working plan must be set up...
...The document also seems to indicate that both sides have made concessions on timing and on the conflict between the ""one treaty" theory and the "multiple treaty" theory...
...If the U.S...
...In spite of all frustrations and disappointments, in spite of all the vexatious attitudes of others, even in spite of our own skepticism as to Soviet intents and purposes, we must not fail humanity in quest for survival...
...Which "camp" one belongs to depends solely on who makes the statement...
...On April 23, 1959, Premier Khrushchev wrote President Eisenhower that a nuclear test treaty should include such controls as would "guarantee strict observance" of the discontinuance of tests...
...J.J.W...
...The important fact about the McCloy-Zorin statement, however, is that now the United States and the Soviet Union appear to be in agreement on all general disarmament matters except the composition of the body to conduct future negotiations...
...The question of the life or death of disarmament is, as I have noted, nearly as much our responsibility as that of the Soviet Union...
...For whatever reasons, each side has taken points and language from the other's proposals where this could be done without giving away anything essential...
...Both sides continually suspect each other of bad faith, of dealing only in propaganda, of plotting aggression in some form or another...
...Somewhere between the enunciation of the principle and the negotiating table, the Soviet interpretation of "guarantee strict observance" seems to have become: "provide for a measure of observance, depending on the good faith of the parties, but under no circumstances guaranteed...
...THE GREATEST PROBLEM THAT MAN HAS YET TO SOLVE' The Quest for Disarmament By James J. Wadsworth On September 20, after four months of intermittent meetings in Washington, Moscow and New York, U.S...
...a realistic timetable must be established...
...These are generalities, of course, but they are far more specific in some ways than last year's generalities voiced at the UN and at Geneva...
...To many Americans the most important consideration would seem to be universal acceptance of the idea that all of disarmament's woes are the fault of the USSR...
...But they did not...
...complex techniques and equipment for the control system have to be decided upon...
...wrecking the Geneva test ban talks...
...Indeed, one has to look rather carefully through the verbiage to pick out the issues that make all the difference...
...and Russian proposals on disarmament...
...And again, in numbered paragraph 1: "The goal of negotiations is to achieve agreement on a program which will ensure that (a) disarmament is general and complete and (b) war is no longer an instrument for settling international problems...
...The proposal was promptly rejected with scorn by Soviet delegate Zorin —so promptly and scornfully, in fact, that there is little room left for doubt: The words of the McCloy-Zorin statement clearly mean something quite different for the Russians than they do for us...
...Paragraph 5 of the joint statement reads as follows: "All measures of general and complete disarmament should be balanced so that at no stage of the implementation of the treaty could any State or group of States gam...
...returning to last month's test-ban talks with unacceptable demands), justifies all our suspicions, all our insistence on adequate safeguards, even our making a virtual fetish of control...
...Special Disarmament Advisor John J. McCloy and Soviet Deputy Foreign Minister Valerian A. Zorin jointly signed one of the most significant disarmament documents ever to appear...
...location of permanent headquarters, regional offices and various facilities such as control posts must be determined...
...a large and complicated verification and control agency must be created...
...At this juncture, the suspicion is so strong and the lack of trust so apparent that a true test of the possibilities for progress toward the agreed goal is hardly conceivable...
...Every respectable possibility must be explored, and Soviet reluctance to accept a safeguarded disarmament plan should not constitute an impossible road block...
...A large part of the document, to be sure, repeats positions taken by one or both sides in the past: The goals are the same, the description of "general and complete" disarmament is the same, and the program for achieving it contains all the old ideas...
...There is little to be gained from a detailed discussion here of the differences between the current U.S...
...We have a responsibility to ourselves as well as to the rest of the world, whether Communist or free, to leave no stone unturned in seeking ways to bring a world without war into being...
...Ambassador to the UN, is President of the Peace Research Institute...
...It should be remembered that the U.S.-Soviet document is only a statement of general principles broadly expressed, on the basis of which a complex treaty of agreement still has to be negotiated...
...For, without a doubt, this is the greatest problem that man has yet to solve: How to abandon forever the concept of war as an instrument of national policy...
...and the USSR have agreed to recommend the following principles and to call upon other states to cooperate in accordance with these principles...
...It carries the provision, heretofore never jointly stated, that transition to a subsequent stage in the disarmament process should depend to a large extent on a review of work in the previous stage...
...Affirming that it is important that all States abide by existing international agreements, refrain from any actions which might aggravate international tension seek settlement of all disputes by peaceful means," "The U.S...
...When the report was issued, United Nations members and correspondents received it with quiet satisfaction (although, recalling other occasions when hopes were unjustifiably raised by vague enunciations of principles, many were sceptical...
...Here is some of the language of the first page of that document: "Noting with concern that the continuing arms race is a heavy burden for humanity and is fraught with dangers for the cause of world peace...
...setting off over 50 atmospheric nuclear bombs...
...Over and over during the past 15 years, government leaders have been impelled by current events to declare disarmament dead, and each time, like a cat that refuses to be drowned, the concept reappears on the politico-diplomatic scene, bedraggled but persistent...
...It seems as though, like the television Westerns of today, the respective "camps," to borrow a Communist term, must be made up exclusively of "bad guys" or "good guys...
...In some ways I wish that this were not true...
...methods of operation and financing have to be agreed upon...
...Why, in the light of the September 20 joint statement, which does not vary significantly from the Western position at Geneva in June 1961, did the Russians walk out of that conference after castigating the West—and particularly the U.S.—for plotting to destroy the negotiations...
...If this means what it says, then the fundamental differences in the two plans as we know them now can be successfully negotiated...
...The difference needs no underlining...
...These three words should have brought about rapid agreement in Geneva and a successful end to the negotiations...
...Yet before we take too great comfort from these achievements, we must ask whether the report offers a real basis for fruitful negotiation...
...to do so would merely require inspired military arithmetic...
...disarmament proposal of September 25, which was based precisely on the principles agreed upon September 20...
...Yet this is not the full answer...
...Yet there are differences...
...military advantage and that security is ensured equally for all...
...James J. Wadsworth, former U.S...
...But assuming that the two powers mean what they say in the preamble of the joint statement, what should we expect...
...Recently in the UN, Ambassador Adlai Stevenson referred to the "bold" new U.S...
...has accepted the goal of "general and complete disarmament" first proposed by the Soviet Union, and because the latter found it necessary or politic to include in its proposals a good many references to control, the similarities appear striking...
...Both sides know they are negotiating not just on disarmament but on questions of security and survival...
...It is easily the most comprehensive document on disarmament ever agreed upon between East and West...
...If it does not, then once again negotiation will become a hollow sham, and revert to the same old propaganda pattern...
...and so forth...
...Specific or not, however, we still have to ask the question: Do the Soviets mean what they say...
...Without such a solution the world may well despair...
...We say to ourselves that what they have done to the world in recent months (e.g., walking out of and destroying the Geneva 10-nation disarmament conference...
...My italics...
...Because the U.S...
Vol. 44 • December 1961 • No. 39
