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members of E.N.D.C. on the necessary linking of the
comprehensive Test Ban and an international body and procedure
to be devised for regulating and controlling nuclear explosions.
Mr. De Palma of the United States had "emphasised" at E.N.D.C.
that these international procedures "would apply to both
bilateral and multilateral projects",¹ but in fact, the
desirability of "bilateral projects" at all remains obscure
- and so does that of the quite unmentioned "unilateral
projects" which nuclear weapons powers might conduct and which
could well require as much international agreement and planning
as multilateral projects. Conference paper No. 3 by Dr. Ulf
Ericsson, of the Stockholm National Defence Research Institute²
gives some idea of the enormous complexity - political, economic,
legal, health, environmental, etc. - of these issues, which,
enthusiasts, both technical and commercial frequently skate
over,³ and which may well keep the value of nuclear explosions
quite marginal for many years.

1. ENDC/PV 369, 22.3.68

2. A/Conf. 35/Doc. 3, 3.7.68

3. e.g. the preceding conference paper, see p 95 above

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Discussion and voting at the 23rd General Assembly showed a decidedly new climate of opinion and interest: international discussion of the Non-Proliferation Treaty and at the Conference of Non-Nuclear Weapons States has been almost as successful educationally as the Partial Test Ban was as a Public Health measure. The general level of information and understanding is now high: the members of E.N.D.C. no longer have to carry the whole weight of it, and the proposals and intentions of the super-powers are being subjected to a scrutiny more beady-eyed, skilful, and up to date, than ever before: scarcely a "third world" speaker but spoke of the need for the super-powers to start their talks on the limitation of strategic arms; scarcely one but mentioned the necessary connexion between an under-ground test ban and international control over all peaceful nuclear explosions (that is, including those of the nuclear weapons states); scarcely one but mentioned the need to keep the sea-bottom free for peaceful uses and for the benefit of all mankind: these being the three areas where suspicion of super-power intentions is most acute.

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In particular, the Soviet Union showed itself alarmed by the new atmosphere, and Mr. Roshchin's speech in the Political Committee¹ was angry and withdrawn to an unusual degree. To ask for better guarantees than the June 1968 Security Assurances was to undermine the Non-Proliferation Treaty; there would be no peaceful explosions for non-signatories; no fund, and no international service for peaceful explosions; no periodic non-nuclear conferences ... all these proposals were but ignorant and malicious attacks on the Non-Proliferation Treaty. In solitude the Soviet bloc² voted against the resolution which endorsed the Declaration of the Non-Nuclear Weapons States and asked the Secretary General to commission an experts' report for the next General Assembly on the possible contribution of nuclear technology to the economic and scientific advancement of developing countries.³ The United States, the United Kingdom, and France were among the 103 votes in favour.

A/CI/PV 1624 pp 11 - et seq

2. This no longer includes Rumania; it sometimes includes Mongolia but not on this occasion.

3. Resolution 2456 A; 20.12.68

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A Resolution requesting a separate report from the Secretary General on the possible "establishment, within the framework of I.A.E.A., of an international service for nuclear explosions for peaceful purposes under appropriate international control" (Rentabang?)¹ was carried by 75 to 9, with 30 abstentions. The United Kingdom considered it supererogatory, since the I.A.E.A. is already, with United Kingdom support, preparing such a report.²

The Soviet bloc also voted against. It did so because, in the words of the Soviet delegate, the Soviet Union "decisively opposes any division of States into groups on only one basis, nuclear or non-nuclear,"⁴ a reason which came oddly from one of the permanent co-chairmen of E.N.D.C., who hold their position only because of their pre-eminence in nuclear weapons. This unusual voting line-up (United Kingdom alone with Soviet bloc) was even more surprising since Iran, whose representative is chairman of I.A.E.A. for 1968-69, and Sweden, which provided the Director General of the I.A.E.A., both voted in favour of the resolution.

1. Resolution 2456 C; 20.12.68

2. I.A.E.A. General Conference Resolution 245 of 30.9.68

A/PV/1750, p.22

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In another part of the debate Mr. Foster suggested the Non-Proliferation Treaty would satisfactorily "establish a balance between limiting the spread of nuclear weapons on" the one hand and developing and sharing the "peaceful benefits of nuclear energy on " the other. In saying this he was ignoring two things too blandly: firstly that in this milieu the word "balance" recalls Resolution 2028 (XX) and refers to a balance of obligations between non-nuclear and nuclear weapon powers in the context of disarmament, and secondly that the technologically advanced "threshold" powers are not at all convinced that the matter of peaceful benefits of nuclear energy has yet been appropriately clarified.

What then? Where next? During the several years before the Non-Proliferation Treaty can become effective, it will have to be nourished on the arms control side with evident progress towards some kind of international security system, which explicity binds in the two super-powers as the Non-Proliferation Treaty does not. Equally, on the "peaceful uses" side, the treaty will not stick if the nuclear weapons powers attempt to hug any kind of monopoly to their bosoms.

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The bilateral missile talks should soon begin and should seek to prohibit development as well as deployment by moving swiftly on towards a comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban, and a ban on the testing of long-range military missiles. The talks will be watched, for two things: whether Russian medium range missiles are included in the discussions or not - a matter of particular interest in Western Europe and in China; and, what kind of information is judged adequate for control purposes if the talks are successful and missile numbers are to be limited. Discussing the possibility of these talks in October 1967, Mr. Warnke, of the United States Department of Defense¹, went so far as to suggest that inspection problems need not arise - presumably because of the effectiveness of the United States observation satellites. However if there is to be no international on-site inspection, the world community will have to be satisfied, presumably by the information acquired by inspection satellite which should be made available in the same sort of way as the World-wide Standard Seismographic Network's data is made available.

1. Paul C. Warnke, Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs, speaking at Detroit, October 12th 1967, said: "We hope to avoid bogging down in the perennially difficult issue of international inspection".

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It was perhaps rash of the United States to agree to a Non-Proliferation Treaty with the Russians which permitted them to avoid all forms of international control, including those they were insisting on submitting others to. This looks like the thin end of a wedge of non-inspection, and to the extent that security depends upon knowledge, it was a bad precedent. It will be all the more interesting to see what arrangements are negotiated with I.A.E.A. for inspection at the Dubna nuclear research centre, which although in the Soviet Union is in part financed and staffed by East Germany and six other non-nuclear weapon states and where the East Germans, etc., "cooperate" as equals".¹ The prospective Anglo-German-Dutch centrifuge research outfit might in its arrangements with I.A.E.A. provide an appropriate model for situations where one party is a nuclear weapons power.

The Comprehensive Test Ban will presumably become rather more negotiable if the missile talks are successful and there is some kind of freeze of

1. Otto Winzer, Foreign Minister of G.D.R., quoted in Foreign Affairs Bulletin, published by Press Department of Ministry of Foreign Affairs, of G.D.R., Vol.8 No.27, p 229, September 25th 1968
The other six are Poland, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, North Korea, Romania and Hungary.

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[LC]

the development as well as on the deployment of A.B.M., M.R.V., etc. Underground tests have been going on at the rate of //figures due shortly from S.I.P.R.II/

A Comprehensive Test Ban could be the occasion of a rationalisation and re-jigging of the present Partial Test Ban arrangements, to allow for international control and planning of all nuclear explosions, underground or not, in accordance with Article V of the Non-Proliferation Treaty and the Non-Nuclear Weapons States recommendation L.×¹ For the Partial Test Ban to be amended, all three Depository Powers have to be in agreement; which means that the United Kingdom, which does not have an underground-testing capability, will have the only "buyer's" veto over the arrangements offered by the United States and the

1. See p above

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Soviet Union, the "sellers" in this particular market.

The new interest and more determined concern of the non-nuclear nations is not a tide that will turn: the Non-Proliferation Treaty has forced all governments to examine its implications in detail and many have found them alarming.

The international conversation about proliferation effectively began with Krishna Menon's long speech of July 1956 and the persona to whom he then lent a voice has neither gone away nor fallen silent nor changed key. Indeed it is now speaking more clearly and for a wider constituency than ever before. For much of the last twelve years, the nuclear super-powers have not really listened to it: they have tended too often to respond with bad argument and a kind of disciplinary incomprehension. The history of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and now its prospects, suggest that this is a field of international discourse where the only pressure that can successfully be applied is good argument, based on understanding.