The Dispirit of Geneva

...The prospect for this is remote, but West Germany needs such a clause to counter the Gaullist argument that an Allied nuclear force would only perpetuate American hegemony...

...2. The most immediate danger is not that nuclear weapons will be given, but that they will be gotten —on a "do-it-yourself" basis...

...This tactical maneuvering is characteristic of what might now be called "The Dispirit of Geneva," in contrast to the Summit conference 10 years ago with its brave horizons of "open skies...

...This is the wrong forum for such a debate, since it is centered on the four NATO delegations to the Disarmament Conference—the U.S., B r i t a i n, Canada and Italy—while West Germany's new disarmament commissioner, Swidbert Schnippenkoetter, hovers suspiciously on the sidelines...

...None of the present five nuclear powers (the United States, Russia, Britain, France and China) has any interest in helping others to qualify for membership in the club...

...3. Such a guarantee is not in the cards...

...Tsarapkin arranged with William C. Foster of the United States to make an "objective" public statement as the chairman of the day, before the meeting went into "closed" session...

...President Johnson, in a message to the Conference, cited non-proliferation as the first disarmament objective...

...The urgency theme, in lighter purple shades, has become fashionable on the Western side...

...This being so, the Soviet delegation can exploit the strange Western zeal for a non-proliferation treaty for two objectives of its own—pressure against Western intervention in Vietnam, and pressure against an Allied nuclear force...

...The United States has shown some understanding about the need for such a clause, but Britain is dead set against it on the ground that it would only shore up the Soviet argument that an Allied nuclear force means nuclear proliferation...

...So the immediate problem is not dissemination, it is self-acquisition, which can only be avoided by guarantees which are unfeasible...

...and he has demanded abandonment of N A T O nuclear force plans and the shutting down of all U.S...

...Then the objective was to repair contact with the Soviet Union and improve the atmosphere for real agreements by first engaging the Soviets in arrangements relatively easy to conclude because they involved no real concessions on either side...

...Surprised only that Tsarapkin did not attack the United States by name, Foster softened his prepared scolding of the Soviet delegate, admonishing him for "taking advantage of" (his draft read "abusing") his position as chairman...

...There is reason to believe that the Soviet delegation was surprised by the order to walk out of the 10-nation Disarmament Conference in June 1960, after the U-2 crisis and the abortive Paris Summit, and, in fact, pleaded against it...

...More serious, the West has been pushed into a sub-rosa debate on the proposed "European clause" in an Allied nuclear force agreement...

...India, the leading candidate, has its own diffusion plant, producing weaponsgrade fissionable material...

...In any event, Russia has flatly rejected the notion of an EastWest nuclear guarantee aimed against another Communist state, however troublesome that state...

...It has led the Western powers, in their search for a formula to put to Russia, into a divisive internal debate on the policies to govern an Allied nuclear force...

...Thus there is a debate on the momentarily hypothetical question of nuclear control within the alliance in an attempt to achieve an even more hypothetical non-proliferation agreement with the Soviet Union...

...bases abroad as a further price of Soviet cooperation...

...The pursuit of a non-dissemination treaty can be better understood not as a real objective but as a hangover from the 1963 post- Cuba period...

...This clause would open the possibility that the absolute American veto over the use of such a force could eventually be replaced by a qualified majority vote in the event that a central authority developed able to speak for Europe...

...Tsarapkin's second Leitmotif is having the more mischievous effects...

...The undismayed American delegation expected the maneuver and had its "impromptu" response DANIEL SCHORR heads Columbia Broadcasting System's news bureau for Germany and Eastern Europe...

...It also calculated that Russia's propaganda bonus would be more than offset by the bad impression on the uncommitted delegations...

...Sweden even resents the idea of being offered such a guarantee...

...CHARGING IN THE WRONG DIRECTION' The Dispirit of Geneva By Daniel Schorr GENEVA It was symptomatic that the Disarmament Conference, after a 10-month break, reassembled on July 27 not with the prayer-meeting zeal that I have witnessed at Geneva openings and re-openings since 1958, but with a bit of tactical trickery, meticulously planned on both sides...

...The debate over an Allied nuclear force, which was largely on ice, has been stimulated anew by the pressure to take a position at Geneva...

...In the press, if not on radio and television, the coverage of Foster's closed-session speech equalled that given to Tsarapkin's public display, since it is customary to brief newsmen immediately afterward...

...The thesis of the latest Harriman mission to Moscow—that the Soviet- American dialogue can somehow be insulated from events in Vietnam—has so far been substantiated only in the most limited sense that Moscow finds it expedient to keep this channel to the West open...

...Indeed, Tsarapkin has told the Conference "There can be no progress here as long as the U.S...

...The Soviets' veteran negotiator, Semyon Tsarapkin, who rotates with the American co-chairman, was due to preside over the 218th session of the Eighteen-Nation Disarmament Committee—as it is still officially known and enshrined in the initials E N D C , despite the empty French chair since its start in March 1962...

...This appears to be recognized now in varying degrees of resignation by most of the old hands, although not by Britain's new Disarmament Minister, Lord Chalfont, who described himself, with charming self-deprecation, as "the new boy who has come roaring into Geneva...

...With only Albania opposing, 83 United Nations members appealed on June 15 for resumption of the Conference, making it easier for Russia to come and do nothing than to stay away...

...persists in its aggressive policy...

...ready...

...And people citing "urgency" charge off in the wrong direction because there is no right direction...

...This was the day of the Moscow-Washington hot line, the partial atomic test ban and the prohibition of nuclear weapons in space...

...A study of Tsarapkin's statements here, and of the Soviet press in recent weeks, indicates no urgency on the Russian side about a non-proliferation treaty...

...With this exclusive lien on radio and television, he proceeded to make a less than objective statement damning the "imperialists" for intervention in Vietnam, the Congo and Latin America...

...This is clear from the following facts, each individually confirmed by Western delegates in conversation: 1. A tacit non-dissemination agreement now exists...

...India has made it clear that it will not sign a non-proliferation agreement unless, among other things, China destroys its atomic weapons or India is given a guarantee against Chinese nuclear blackmail...

...It is manifestly difficult for alliance members to promise nuclear protection to an uncommitted nation...

...And no one—probably not even Tsarapkin—knows for how long...

...But the astonishing irony is that the specific objective being pursued—an agreement in which the nuclear powers would pledge not to pass on their secrets, and non-nuclear powers promise not to acquire them —has little relevance to the stated reasons for the urgency...

...This creates friction between Bonn and the professional disarmers, who see the chances for a treaty as fragile enough already...

...Lord Chalfont has dedicated himself to achieving an early East-West agreement to check the spread of nuclear weapons...

...The shadow of Vietnam falls heavily over the proceedings, making it unlikely that the Soviet Union would risk substantial new agreements at this stage, even if they were objectively possible...

...But 1965 is not the post-Cuba period, it is the mid-Vietnam period...

...West Germany, on the dubious premise that Russia badly wants a non-proliferation treaty, suggests that the Kremlin be asked to pay a price in concessions on German unification...

...The United States, originally favorably inclined, has backed off from the idea...

...In a conversation with newsmen, Tsarapkin went so far as to express absolute confidence that France would never share nuclear weapons with West Germany...

...The Canadian draft of a non-proliferation treaty proposes one, but Britain is firmly against including a guarantee in any treaty...

...And the Soviet Union, by simply being here and standing pat, can keep the Western pot boiling, while at the same time giving notice to Peking that Moscow's channels to the West remain open...

...The Russians are as aware as the Western governments that there is no real danger of dissemination by the existing nuclear powers...

...In what he later termed "a passage of purple prose," he told the Conference in his maiden speech, "The time is running out fast, and if we miss our opportunity, we could well find ourselves reaching the point of no return"—which he fixed afterward as this fall, when the Conference recesses and reports to the UN General Assembly...