TURNING POINT FOR DISARMAMENT
Humphrey, Hubert H.
Turning Point for DISARMAMENT by HUBERT H. HUMPHREY When the technical experts of the United States, the Soviet Union, and other countries convened recently at Geneva to explore the requirements...
...This is why disarmament is primarily a political rather than a military problem...
...tunity for the nuclear powers to demonstrate their will to slow down the arms race...
...Our frame of reference must encompass broader considerations, in particular the acceptance of the fact that differences between the Communist bloc and the democratic West must be resolved through peaceful competitive co-existence...
...It is only the first phase of our total disarmament blueprint...
...But this proposal, containing interlocking provisions for ending nuclear weapons tests and production, for cutting back armed forces and conventional arms, and for inspection against surprise attack, was entirely too complicated for a first step...
...Last year the Administration settled on what it euphemistically called a "first step" proposal...
...Bulganin and Khrushchev have also asserted that the "discontinuance of the manufacture" of atomic and hydrogen weapons should be among the aims of disarmament...
...will ever accept a reliable inspection system...
...One question I am often asked is whether I really believe that the secretive U.S.S.R...
...But the proof of the pudding is in the eating...
...In the hope that a non-political approach might get results, I have suggested several times that experts from each side study the general inspection question from a purely technical aspect...
...We could not permit ourselves to be drawn into an agreement under which we would deprive ourselves of an important weapon in our armory while the other side secretly continued to arm itself with that weapon...
...Part of the battle revolves around the question whether there can be an effective inspection network to check on a nuclear test moratorium...
...Edward Teller, director of the Liver-more Radiation Laboratory, maintains that the Soviet military nuclear experts could cheat on a complete test ban...
...Finally, Khrushchev turned his habitual nyet into a reluctant da, and accepted the offer of President Eisenhower to have technical groups study inspection for test suspension...
...But it has struck a sour note in refusing to modify its nuclear disarmament policy...
...First, there is a great deal of evidence that they want a lessening of their arms burden...
...As long as an inspection system possesses this amount of certainty, we would have a high degree of assurance that no signatory of a suspension pact would run the political risk of sneaking an illegitimate test explosion...
...The greater the number of stations, the greater the chance any explosion would be correctly identified...
...For a great many years we toiled away at a proposal for controlling nuclear arms—the so-called Baruch or United Nations plan—that, as we look back on it now, was too elaborate and advanced in its aims...
...But if the number of stations should be radically limited, then the likelihood of confusing earthquakes with underground explosions would increase...
...Opponents of a nuclear test ban often miss this vital political factor...
...This is the way we usually solve the problems of life...
...When the technicians' committee reports, we shall then have a sharper picture of how far the Soviet Union is prepared to go...
...Hans Bethe of Cornell University, a leading physicist on Dr...
...The military advantage it might get from a sneak test under such conditions would probably be so limited it would be far outweighed by the political disadvantages of getting •'caught in the act" and thus ig-nominiously causing termination of the agreement, incurring the opprobrium of world public opinion, and, most important, causing the arms race to continue unabated...
...To continue to cling to the package after its acceptance became utterly hopeless was, and still is, incomprehensibly obtuse...
...Time and technology inevitably took their toll of the Baruch plan, and eventually our scientific inability to detect hidden and rapidly swelling stockpiles of nuclear bombs made it obsolete...
...The President has often insisted that a cutoff in the production of nuclear material for weapons purposes is the "heart of the nuclear weapons problem...
...otherwise the momentum we desire as one of the main effects of the ban might be lost...
...Yet, how long does the White House think it can deny the logic of events...
...In an effort to adjust to technical and political realities, international discussions then shifted to plans for disarmament by phases or stages...
...It could be a landmark of the greatest historical importance in free world-Communist relations, a turning point toward peace in our time...
...The President asserted that the technical studies would be without prejudice to the respective positions of the United States and the Soviet Union "on the timing and interdependence of various aspects of disarmament...
...Its stubbornness has cost us dearly in the eyes of the world...
...The joint study group which was conferring at Geneva as this was written can be a major breakthrough on the inspection front...
...Some of our experts on Soviet Russia now believe that top Russian officials are beginning to see more clearly that they cannot have an international agreement to limit armaments without accepting some kind of inspection...
...The Administration deserves much credit for going ahead with studies for inspection of a test ban...
...As a test ban comes closer to realization, we must stress our purpose of progressing to other phases of arms control...
...This is going to be a tough mouthful for the Soviet leaders to swallow, but there is genuine evidence that they will come around to it...
...A temporary inspected test termination would constitute a natural step toward a prohibition of nuclear arms production...
...It was plain to see that an initial step had to be relatively small and simple, if it were going to be politically acceptable as well as technically feasible...
...While in many respects the Baruch proposal was one of the noblest offers ever made by any nation, it was impractical because it misread the acceptability of the proposal to a government that feared contact and interchange of information between its own people and non-Communist countries...
...Such a situation would not contribute to peace and would only hasten the conflagration we are trying to avoid...
...The number of inspection stations will be a key issue...
...Turning Point for DISARMAMENT by HUBERT H. HUMPHREY When the technical experts of the United States, the Soviet Union, and other countries convened recently at Geneva to explore the requirements of inspection for a suspension of nuclear weapons tests, the event was widely greeted as a turning point in the disarmament problem...
...Both supporters and opponents of a temporary nuclear test suspension should realize that it would be only a beginning...
...Economic pressures in the Soviet economy—mounting consumer demand, dwindling manpower reserves, and the multiplying complications of an expanding industry—are working to restrict the labor and materiel going into the military effort...
...By pressing inexorably onward to bring into operation a nuclear weapons test suspension and the rest of our disarmament blueprint, we shall bring closer the day when we can rid the world of its burdens of fear, hate, and want...
...When the negotiations broke down at London last year, common sense dictated that the package be broken up and subdivided, particularly since there was no logic in keeping all of the provisions locked together...
...The larger the number of stations the smaller the size of a nuclear test explosion that can be reliably identified...
...In disarmament we must weigh prudently all the dangers of continuation of the nuclear arms buildup toward an unpredictable climax against the risks that might be involved in a suspension of tests with an inspection network...
...To be of substantial disarmament value it had to check the forward rush of the arms race...
...To dispel any misimpression the world might have of U.S...
...The best time to do this would be at the time a test ban agreement is concluded, for it would then refute any impression that the test ban was the only disarmament we wanted...
...The inauguration of a test ban now could start the wheels of international reconciliation turning and initiate a movement that will eventually bring genuine peace to the troubled peoples of the world...
...First, there must be an inspection system which is effective and adequate...
...The vital significance of their meeting was that the great military powers, after years of futile talk, delay, and obstructionism, were finally getting down to cases and were penetrating to an area of the disarmament problem where there might be meaningful accomplishment...
...All signs pointed to a suspension of nuclear tests as one of the most logical steps...
...The Administration has not thus far been able to reconcile its own differences of opinion over whether a suspension of tests with inspection should be sought...
...A ban on tests would be relatively uncomplicated scientifically and it would check the arms competition—which is in large part a technological competition—at a key point, the development of nuclear weapons...
...The Soviet diplomats have stalled, squirmed, evaded, and several times raised our hopes mightily with concessions that appeared to be consequential but eventually turned out to be more smoke than substance...
...As I was writing this the Administration was still feverishly debating with itself whether a test halt should be entered into independently...
...It was a comprehensive proposal envisaging international control of fissionable material from mine pit to end product...
...What the perfectionists overlook is that there is a risk in whatever course we take...
...Killian's Scientific Advisory Committee, says they could not get away with sneak testing...
...When Moscow announced several months ago a conditional suspension of nuclear tests, I called on our own government to press for an international agreement to suspend tests with inspection...
...There is a close correlation between the number of inspection stations and the extent to which a test ban can be effectively inspected...
...To expect a tightly sealed entity like the Soviet Union to embrace in one gesture a package like that was naive...
...In plain English this meant that the United States did not consider that the technical studies on inspection for a test suspension, if successful, would commit us to negotiate at a political level for an agreement on a test ban separate from the disarmament package...
...Those who insist that a cutoff of nuclear weapons production be linked to a nuclear test suspension should be more perceptive of the political realities and view this whole problem of disarmament in more of a time perspective...
...In general they have refused to be pinned down on the inspection issue...
...The second principle, therefore, is that there must be a balancing of risks between one course of action and another...
...The mounting pressure from world public opinion has created an opporSENATOR HUBERT HUMPHREY, Minnesota Democrat, is a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and chairman of its Subcommittee on Disarmament...
...Installation of an inspection system would be a political breakthrough of momentous proportions...
...Lack of political practicality has long bedeviled disarmament negotiations...
...History teaches that the most antagonistic ideological opponents have an interest in survival, and sooner or later learn to reach a peaceful modus vivendi...
...It was foolish of the Administration to believe that the Kremlin would ever hesitate to seize an opportunity to score a propaganda point...
...intentions in participating in the technical study, the President should immediately announce the willingness of this country to agree, separately and distinctly from other disarmament measures, to negotiate at a political level for a suspension of nuclear weapons tests if the technical committee agrees on the inspection requirements...
...Is the Administration, which insisted on creating the technical committee, still going to clench its teeth in determined refusal to go along...
...A purely military frame of reference will sooner or later eventuate in a purely military result...
...The really significant thing is to get a test ban in effect and an inspection system in operation...
...But the Eisenhower Administration has dragged its feet...
...Much of the controversy over inspection could be allayed if two principles were kept in mind...
...We must balance the danger of spreading nuclear weapons know-how to fourth, fifth, and innumerable other countries against the danger that the U.S.S.R., which has, according to public reports, made about 50 tests to our approximately 100, might try to sneak a few more...
...A conclusive answer to the question cannot be found if the question is viewed solely in scientific terms...
...Since both governments have individually proclaimed this as a goal of nuclear disarmament, I propose that this and perhaps other specific disarmament goals be jointly affirmed in principle by both governments...
...For years the United States has been insisting on adequate nuclear inspection and other forms of disarmament...
...But such a frame of reference is much too narrow...
...What if the American and Soviet technical committees agree on what constitutes effective and reliable inspection for a suspension of tests...
...This is why an inspection breakthrough into the Soviet Union outweighs the military value of the development of new varieties of nuclear weapons...
...The arguments for continuing tests to develop defensive weapons against enemy intercontinental missiles or for small clean tactical weapons to limit the threat of all-out nuclear war may be justified within a purely military frame of reference...
...Inspection has to be good enough so that every country knows there is a great probability it is going to be caught if it tries to cheat on the agreement...
Vol. 22 • August 1958 • No. 8
