The United States and the Soviet Union each used grand and satisfied words when the Non-Proliferation Treaty they had worked out and at for so long finally emerged from the United Nations General Assembly last June. This paper examines the appropriateness of those words and of that satisfaction, and risks judgement not only on them, but also more generally on the questions, whence the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and whither, how?

The conclusions reached, or perhaps the pointers, the directional indications, may be unexpected. The widely supported United Nations "condemnation" of the Non-Proliferation Treaty can still be meaningless; the two super-powers who sought so assiduously to achieve a "naked", unencumbered, Non-Proliferation Treaty may well, if they wish to see it enter into force, have to clothe it, not only in one or more actual measures of disarmament, but also with various undertakings to share out the anticipated benefits of nuclear technology, explosive and other. If they wish to see it implemented by the "threshold" powers, by the nuclear powers for whom there really is a weapons option, and a conceivable weapons need,

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more still may be required of them: and that is a
kind of philosophical overhaul, for which the United
States may now be ready, but which appears beyond
the grasp of the present Russian leadership.

What the future may find surprising about
the history of the Non-Proliferation Treaty so far is
the persistent disinclination of the super-powers to
accept the evidence that Nth powers have security
problems to which nuclear weapons are relevant (France
and China), that horizontal proliferation is a function
of the super-powers own vertical arms race (United
Kingdom and China; - a nuclear Israel would be the
first exception to this rule), that a non-proliferation
policy requires a multilateral, or package, approach,
and that a system of law will be more acceptable than
a system of privilege.

Both super-powers have preferred to suppose,
or to appear to suppose, that the less powerful
countries have been mistaken in their evaluations
of their own interests, and only too often they have
engaged in a kind of self-defeating salesmanship:
Russian statements that the "security assurances" have
solved the security problem of the Nth powers are
patently untrue, especially since Czechoslovakia.

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Their joint attempts to maintain that the Non-Proliferation Treaty does not discriminate in their favour have been counter-productive, and so have their repeated statements that nothing else could be negotiated until the Non-Proliferation Treaty was in the bag. Prevarication has not succeeded. And the price super-powers have to pay to get the Non-Proliferation Treaty into effect will daily get higher, and more difficult to pay, in proportion to the growing complexity of nuclear technology, both military and peaceful, and to the decline in nation-states' confidence that a world security system is in the making.

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II

The British and American governments jointly embarked on the production of nuclear weapons in the early 1940s, partly at any rate because there was and could be no certainty that Nazi Germany was not in the process of acquiring them. Then, as now, deterrence by counter-acquisition was the most obvious policy, but three anti-proliferation techniques were also adopted: secrecy; the physical destruction of the other side's plant (the two assaults on the Norsk Hydro heavy water undertaking in German-occupied Norway); and the pre-emption of raw materials.

The first of these techniques was so operated by the United States, that the United Kingdom in 1945 found itself excluded from both information and control. This was in despite of specific agreements reached and signed by

1. In cooperation also with the Canadian Government and eventually with the collaboration of a small number of French scientists, who however viewed themselves as French civil servants, rather than as unofficial employees of a foreign government.

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President Roosevelt and Mr. Churchill¹, which had certain anti-proliferation implications: Mr. Churchill had made it clear that in the event of failure in Anglo-American collaboration, the United Kingdom would take "the sombre decision" of going ahead alone. This was indeed the decision Mr. Attlee took: as a first step towards acquisition of nuclear weapons, Harwell was established early in October 1945. "We had", he explained later, "to hold up our position vis-à-vis the Americans. We couldn't allow ourselves to be wholly in their hands, and their position wasn't awfully clear always".² He feared too that "the U.S.A. was relapsing into isolationism". The French government, whose claims to international cooperation were minor, and were not pressed, set up their Atomic Energy

1. At Quebec, in August 1943, and at Hyde Park in September 1944.

2. Clement Attlee: *A Prime Minister Remembers (London 1961)*, p.118

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Commission in October 1945¹. The Canadian government too, embarked almost at once on a civil programme but it has not so far sought to make nuclear weapons.

At the end of the war, a number of further anti-proliferation techniques became available, including political, economic, and academic pressures,² and bi- or multi-lateral international agreements. It was thought in the United States that secrecy would go a long way towards maintaining the American monopoly which, after the Russian rejection of the Baruch plan in 1946, was judged the least objectionable of possible eventualities. The view of General Groves, himself hardly the most international-minded of men,

1. For a French account of "anti-proliferation" of this and subsequent times, see Bertrand Goldschmidt, Le problème du Contrôle International de l'Energie Atomique, Revue de Défense Nationale, August 1968, p.1167, et seq. For an American view of them, see George Ball, *The Discipline of Power*, London 1968, passim.

2. By "academic pressures", I mean for instance, the hardly fortuitous dearth of published research in the United States on subjects such as the catalytic use of nuclear weapons; the political use of acquisition or ownership of nuclear weapons in intra-alliance bargaining; the effect on deterrence of alliance nuclear polycentrism; the theory of bee-sting deterrence; etc.; the publishing policy of subsidised periodicals and firms, etc..

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but in which he was supported by internationalists
and chauvinists alike, was that continued collaboration
with the British was incompatible with the United
Nations Charter. In April 1946 the MacMahon act
was passed into American law and under its cooperation
became illegal.

In January 1946, the United Nations
General Assembly's first resolution set up a Commission
on Atomic Energy with a membership consisting of that
of the Security Council plus Canada. There, in
June 1946, the United States put forward the Baruch
plan, which proposed that international control
and inspection should precede destruction of stocks
of nuclear weapons and that there should be no veto
over any of the activities of a proposed International
Atomic Development Authority, or over such sanctions
as might be devised against infringements of this
Authority's rights. Three days later, in the same
forum, the Soviet Union proposed that the destruction
of all stocks should precede international control
and inspection, and that there should be such a veto.

Thus, within a year of the first use of
nuclear energy, the elements of the now familiar

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scene were established; the Soviet-American
nuclear arms race had begun and the essential
content of subsequent East-West dialogue had been
established; a nuclear power's disappointed and
exposed ally had determined to embark on the
independent acquisition of nuclear weapons; and the
United Nations had been given the role of aim-setter
and occasional forum. Moreover that particular
confusion, which still dogs the whole topic, between
non-proliferation as a nuclear power's national
interest, and non-proliferation as an element in
an international security system was already at
work.

III

During the forties and early fifties, the
proliferation problem was scarcely distinguished
from that of eliminating nuclear weapons. Such
proposals as the United Nations Atomic Energy
Commission considered were unitary: the General
Assembly Resolution of December 14th 1946 referred
simply to "prohibiting and eliminating from national
armaments atomic and all other major weapons
adaptable now and in the future to mass destruction,
and the control of atomic energy to the extent
necessary to ensure its use only for peaceful
purposes".¹

In December 1953 General Eisenhower made
his Atoms for Peace proposal, which eventually
led to the creation of I.A.E.A. This, coupled
with his belief that a threat to use nuclear
weapons in Korea had finally brought about the
armistice there, perhaps provides the base-line
for the distinction between control over nuclear
weapons technology and control over peaceful
nuclear technology which is enshrined in the Non-
Proliferation Treaty.

1. United Nations and Disarmament 1945-65, pp 26/7

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In the autumn of 1954 the Russian's near-
acceptance of a compromise Franco-British disarmament
plan suggested that comprehensive agreement might
still be reached. But it was not, and "collateral"
and "partial" measures now began to be ventilated.
During the next two years many of the elements of
the 1966 Non-Proliferation "Package" emerged,
several of them in a major speech by Mr. Krishna
Menon to the United Nations Disarmament Commission
on July 12th 1956. He repeated Mr. Nehru's two
year old proposal for a nuclear test ban; he referred
to "what used to be 'the third country' problem.
Now it is 'the fourth country' problem. Next time
we meet it may be the 'fifth country' problem."
He spoke of the importance of an actual first step in
nuclear disarmament. He asked for no trade in
nuclear weapons and a freeze on their manufacture,
and for no transfer of either nuclear weapons or
fissile material. He suggested direct negotiations
between the United States and the Soviet Union and
that the Disarmament Commission should be more
representative. He said "control is the <expression>
of the determination of nations for the securement

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of agreements that have been reached".¹ There was also a suggestion in a contemporary British-French working paper that nuclear explosions for peaceful purposes be placed "under controls, subject to the approval of an international committee".²

There was now a definite shift away from the United Nations as the disarmament forum, towards a sub-committee of the Disarmament Commission, which consisted of Canada, France, the United Kingdom, the United States and the Soviet Union, and the various ad-hoc committees of experts (detection of test ban violations, surprise attack) set up by the United States and the Soviet Union. In 1959, the sub-committee enlarged itself from five to ten, and became more accurately bipolar by adding Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Rumania and Italy. Then in 1961 Russian-American agreement added a further eight, non-aligned powers and the Committee became the E.N.D.C. of today. It was still under United Nations auspices but at some remove.

1. Third Report, Disarmament Commission 1956, PV 58 et sec

2. Third Report of Disarmament Commission 1956, Annex 2 (DC SC1/38)

3. Brazil, Burma, Ethiopia, India, Mexico, Nigeria, Sweden, U.A.R.

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During the next few years non-proliferation
appeared annually on the General Assembly's Agenda.

In 1957, a Yugoslav Resolution, which
was not voted on, included a "no transfer" of nuclear
-weapons clause. In 1958 there was an Irish draft
resolution¹ referring to the danger of an increase
in the number of nuclear weapon states, and calling
for an hoc committee to make recommendations for
avoiding these dangers. The resolution was
eventually withdrawn after receiving considerable
support from the Communist bloc and the non-aligned
powers, the Nato powers abstaining.

But by now entropy was taking its toll of
what may at one point have been a fairly simple
situation: a number of governments had felt the hot
breath of a positive requirement for nuclear weapons
under independent control; with the appearance
of Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles, technology
had made inevitable a revolution in strategic
thinking and in the theory and practice of international
relations. In practice it was clear that proliferation,

1. A/C1/L206 - 17.10.58

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IV

In November 1957, Mr. Dulles, asked at a press conference whether European governments might have a veto over the use of Nato's nuclear weapons, had answered: "No, I don't think this involves a veto on their part, any more than an individual citizen has a veto over the action of the policeman on the beat".¹

Such a view fast became anachronistic. The Suez affair and the Quemoy and Matsu crisis brought home to the British, French and Chinese governments the limits of Alliance: the two latter now took up the weapons option their nuclear programmes had till then kept open. The Sandys Defence White Paper of 1957 emphasised British reliance on nuclear weapons. Sputnik went up, and General de Gaulle's suggestion for Anglo-Franco-American "joint strategic war planning by combined chiefs of staff on a world-wide scale" was brushed aside.

1. Quoted in T.C. Weigle: The Origins of the MLF Concept 1957-60. Orbis; Vol XII, No.2., Summer 1968, p.468

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At the same time, the McMahon Act was
amended to allow certain kinds of cooperation in
nuclear matters between the United States and its
Nato allies. A scheme was announced¹ to stockpile
tactical nuclear warheads in Europe, to be released
to Nato allies in the event of Soviet attack. Thors
and Jupiters were emplaced in the United Kingdom,
and in Greece and Turkey, under a double-key system.
There was an American offer of information to such
allies as might wish to build a nuclear submarine.

Thus there coincided a new awareness on the
part of the then Nth powers that they and their
senior nuclear allies could differ substantially
on matters vital to their national interests; and
an increasingly general belief that war could not
but be nuclear. "Proliferation" emerged as a fast
growing head on the nuclear Hydra.

In United States policy, there had always
been a strong anti-proliferation strain. There
had been the constraints on civil nuclear activities
proposed for the American-backed Europe Defence
Community in 1953; the renunciation of military

1. July 1957

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nuclear activities required of Euratom participants
in the 1956 proposals of the Monnet Committee of
Action for a United States of Europe; American
opposition to a French, or Euratom, separation plant,
in 1956 and 57; American influence preventing the
free sale of uranium by Canada to France in 1956;
Congress's unwillingness to allow the sharing in
submarine nuclear technology which President Eisenhower
had suggested to Nato in December 1957; the embargo
after 1960 on the sale of large computers to France.¹

Now this anti-proliferation strain became
much more self-conscious. A report issued in
May 1958² by the National Planning Association
included a chart, "the Nth Country problem, a projection",
suggesting that 1970 might see between eight and
twelve independent nuclear weapons states, (p.41).
Its conclusion was that "most nations with appreciable
military strength will have in their arsenals nuclear
weapons, strategic, tactical, or both". In his

1. See Bertrand Goldschmidt, Le Problème du Contrôle, Revue de Défense Nationale, August 1968 and, for the last item, The Times 19.12.64.

2. The National Planning Association, Washington D.C., "1970 Without Arms Control".

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enormously influential article, "The Delicate Balance of Terror"¹ Albert Wohlstetter adumbrated a view that he analysed more precisely in "Nuclear Sharing: Nato and the N + 1 Problem"², that is, that nuclear proliferation would endanger the central nuclear balance, quite apart from its other undesirable effects.

Proliferation now appeared most nearly impending within the two great alliances, and its prevention became the concern of two kinds of people: those who wished to see the elimination of nuclear weapons, and those who wished to enhance the stability of what they saw as the central strategic balance. The disagreement was fundamental, but not always evident: thus C.N.D. in Britain, and Mr. George Ball, in the State Department, came to be in full agreement about the desirability of unilateral nuclear disarmament for the United Kingdom.

The greater part of the new arms control thinking which emerged in a remarkable florescence in the late '50s was rooted in the United States,

1. Foreign Affairs, January 1958

2. Foreign Affairs, April 1961

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and over the years it became increasingly instinct
with a dangerously insulated philosophy that assumed
as necessarily and properly pre-eminent the
responsibilities and interests of the United States.
A consequent assumption was that the developing
bipolar power system not only could, but would, and
should, endure; that its two centres, the United
States and the Soviet Union, were not vulnerable to
internal or external pressures and developments, but
only, and then mutually, to each others' strategic
nuclear forces; and that it was irrational of their
allies to doubt this. Mr. McNamara translated much
of this thinking into American national security
policy.

More or less parallel views grew up after
a certain interval in the Soviet Union, the
ideological primacy of the Soviet Communist Party
in the Communist world providing fertile theoretical
soil. To a limited extent they were echoed within
Nato. Elsewhere, for the most part, the bloc system
was seen to raise as many problems as it solved.
Today these views are no longer much held in their
pristine form, except perhaps in the Soviet Union:
they have been too damaged by the war in Vietnam,
by the Sino-Soviet split, by the growth of urban

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and other problems in the United States, by the implications for the international communist system of the Czechoslovak "spring" and of the Russian reactions to it. But just as laws lag behind public opinion, so do treaties lag behind perceptions of interest. The Non-Proliferation Treaty which was finally opened for signature and ratification July 1st, 1968, and the "guarantees" which accompanied it, bear many marks of the bipolarism of the early sixties. The Cuba crisis and the Partial Test Ban of 1963 were that period's chief monuments; and the Non-Proliferation Treaty continues the tradition then established of "leadership" and privilege in favour of the senior members of the nuclear club. The reactions of today's $N^{th}$ powers to the Non-Proliferation Treaty are similar to those of 1963's $N^{th}$ powers to the Partial Test Ban.

And yet the first Russian-American agreed text, the Zorin-McCloy Joint Statement of Principles on the basis of which disarmament might be negotiated¹, beyond the fact that it was drawn up in private

1.September 20th, 1961; text in United Nations and Disarmament 1945-65, pp 87-8

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was quite non-discriminatory. Only principle No. 6, about the maintenance of a balance throughout the disarmament process, made any kind of reference (and that oblique) to the confrontation of the two nuclear alliances. Moreover the relationship between a "total programme" and partial measures was precisely accepted. The Zorin-McCloy statement was unanimously welcomed by the governments of the world and the agreement a few months later between the Americans and the Russians on the composition of a multilateral Eighteen Nation Disarmament Committee to succeed the bilateral Ten Nation Disarmament Committee was unanimously approved by the General Assembly.

The Eighteen Nation Disarmament Committee met in Geneva on March 14th 1962 at Foreign Minister level (though without the French) under procedures¹ jointly devised by the United States and the Soviet Union and under their permanent joint chairmanship.

It set to work, concurrently, on general and comprehensive disarmament, "collateral measures", and the discontinuance of nuclear tests. A Sub-Committee, consisting of the United States, the United Kingdom

1. Voting procedures were not mentioned.

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and the Soviet Union, was swiftly hived off to
continue the discussions which they had previously
carried on in the Conference on the Discontinuance
of Nuclear Weapon Tests. The Soviet Union and the
United States each produced general and comprehensive
disarmament drafts, on March 15th and April 18th
respectively, and both texts - though otherwise
discrepant - laid a "no transfer obligation on nuclear
powers in the first stage of the proposed disarmament
process.

By this time in fact it was clear that
nothing was less likely than that either super-power
should transfer control over nuclear weapons out of
its own hand. As Mr. McNamara came to see it, the
grand strategy of the alliance of which the United
States was the acknowledged and necessary lead
required a capability for inflicting unacceptable
retaliation at any level of threat, from guerrilla to
intercontinental warfare, from bows and arrows to
I.C.B.Ms with multi-megaton warheads. For this
capability to be credible, the strategic nuclear
force had to be a "single integrated .... force,
responsive to a single chain of command, to be
employed in a fully integrated manner against what

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is truly an indivisible target system¹. The ultimate decision in the Alliance could not but be American; British and French nuclear forces should be either integrated or, preferably, given up, and any consequent savings should be devoted to rectifying deficiencies on the conventional side. Eventually the Multilateral Force was "conceived as an educational instrument and a healing ointment to relieve the pressures for proliferation"² within NATO. In fact, it was its political implications that rendered this whole doctrine impractical. For the United States, ultimate military decisions would continue to be taken by the elected government; for the other allies they would not - a state of affairs unprecedented in peacetime, and neither acceptable nor stable.

1. Mr. McNamara, January 30th 1963

2. George Ball: The Discipline of Power (Bodley Head), 1968, p.206

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V

Ireland had not ceased submitting draft Resolutions to the General Assembly of the United Nations. That of 1959 went into considerably greater detail than the previous year's, and had been acceptable to Ireland's Western neighbours, except France. It suggested that the Ten Nation Disarmament Committee which had just been set up should study how to prevent both the dissemination and the horizontal proliferation of nuclear weapons. The Soviet Union did not support it because it failed to mention the dispersal of nuclear weapons onto the territory of allies. It was adopted by 68 votes to none; with 12 abstentions.¹

Ireland's 1960 resolution directly called on the nuclear powers voluntarily to refrain from disseminating control over or information about nuclear weapons, and on the non-nuclear powers to refrain from acquiring them, pending a permanent agreement. This time the Soviet Union supported the resolution, evidently eyeing the possibility

1. Republic of China, Czechoslovakia, France, Hungary, Peru, Poland, Rumania, Ukraine, Soviet Union, Albania, Bulgaria, Byelorussia.

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of American dissemination within NATO. The United
States abstained, objecting uncharacteristically
that it was continuing vertical proliferation that
emboldened horizontal proliferation
and characteristically that the restraint called for
would be unverified. The resolution was carried
by 68 to none, with 26 abstentions.¹

In 1961, the Irish draft resolution
called "upon all states, and in particular upon the
States at present possessing nuclear weapons, to
use their best endeavours to secure the conclusion
of an international agreement containing provisions
under which the nuclear States would undertake to
refrain from relinquishing control of nuclear weapons
and from transmitting the information necessary for
their manufacture to States not possessing such
weapons, and provisions under which States not
possessing nuclear weapons would undertake not to
manufacture or otherwise acquire control of such
weapons."²

1. A mixed bag, including Australia, the Nato powers (including France), some Latin Americans and South Africa.

2. Resolution 1665 (XVI)

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The Irish spokesman suggested that the nuclear powers work out an agreement in private and that, when they had agreed, they should submit it to the international community - a suggestion taken up in the second half of 1966, which eventually resulted in the 1968 Non-Proliferation Treaty.

For the first time the Resolution was unanimously adopted. An additional Swedish proposal for curbing the dispersal of nuclear weapons by way of a "non-nuclear club" was accepted by the Soviet Union, but not by the United States. A significant phrase in this text "[recognised] that the countries not possessing nuclear weapons have a grave interest, and an important part to fulfil, in the preparation and implementation of such measures" could halt further nuclear weapons tests and prevent the further spread of nuclear weapons[1]. This Resolution also required the Secretary General to enquire into "the conditions under which countries not possessing nuclear weapons might be willing to enter into specific undertakings to refrain from manufacturing or otherwise acquiring such weapons and to refuse to 1. Resolution 1664 (XVI); The vote in favour was 58 to 10, with 23 abstentions.

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receive, in the future, nuclear weapons in their
territories on behalf of any other country!¹ 62
answers were elicited, and they ranged from the vague
(Afghanistan was against proliferation and favoured
an international convention to prevent it) to the
precisely dubious (Australia was concerned at the
emergence of possibly aggressive military power in
East Asia and the Western Pacific, doubted the
effectiveness of regional arrangements for de- or
non-nuclearisation, and would not be satisfied with
declaratory statements). But the consensus was
clear: although it was those countries closest to
Nth status who were the most definite that they would
only be likely to adhere to such an undertaking if it
was universal and comprehensive and involved the
nuclear powers too, yet this was also unmistakably
the general opinion.

Non-proliferation was not resolved on by
the General Assembly in 1962, but in discussion it
was mentioned as the next "collateral" measure to
be sought after the then ripening Test Ban.

1. Doc DC 201

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VI

At the time, the Test Ban¹ seemed to be a promising first step for curbing the arms race; the Hot Line², a desirable innovation; the resolution (and eventual treaty) on the banning of weapons of mass destruction in outer space³ useful; the declarations about cut-back in the production by the Soviet Union, the United States and the United Kingdom of plutonium and enriched uranium,⁴ again promising.

But alongside the Test Ban there had also been ripening the project for the Nato Multilateral nuclear force. For the next few years this Chimera remained in the centre of the stage: Chimera, because to its Western proponents it was an intra-alliance anti-proliferation measure; to its Western opponents it was either a eunuch's fig-leaf, or a red herring; and to the Soviet Union it was proliferation under another name.

1. 5.8.63

2. 20.6.63

3. Resolution 17.10.63; Treaty 27.1.67

4. 20.4.64

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The Secretary General's enquiry of 1962 had indicated the necessarily comprehensive nature of any non-proliferation exercise, and looking back it seems extraordinary that a "naked", unencumbered, Non-Proliferation agreement should ever have been thought easy to negotiate, simple to apply, or even logically extricable from the central Russian-American arms race. The small significance of the various super-power agreements gradually became apparent. The Kennedy administration had, in recommending the Partial Test Ban Treaty to the Senate for ratification, given assurances that underground test programmes would continue "to add to our knowledge and improve our weapons in all areas of significance to our military posture for the future"¹. The eight non-aligned governments at Geneva, and no doubt some of the aligned governments as well, were becoming disenchanted with the procedure of the Eighteen Nation Disarmament Committee. But their complaints and the proposals they made for improvement went unheard: working parties and ad hoc informal meetings,

1. Quoted from the "Nuclear Test Ban Treaty; Hearings before the Committee on Foreign Relations of the U.S. Senate August 12th-27th, 1963" in R.R. Neild, "What has happened to Disarmament?"; David Davies Annual Memorial Lecture 1968, p.6

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if necessary with technical experts present, an
orderly agenda, the recall of the three power
sub-committee on the discontinuance of nuclear
weapons tests to negotiate the completion of the
Partial Test Ban¹ (as promised in its preamble).
The Brazilian delegate's remark in September 1964
that "The separate study of proposals which in
practice should be complementary has hampered our
work"² was repeated more vigorously by the Indian
Delegate, Mr. Chakravarty, some months later when
disarmament discussion was resumed in the United
Nations Disarmament Commission in New York: "We
have... now reached a stage when isolated collateral
measures are no longer easy to undertake or to
implement."³ Moreover "it is unrealistic to ask
countries to forswear for ever a programme of nuclear
weapons production, when the existing nuclear Powers
continue to hold on to their awesome arsenals and when,
we may add, new countries embark on nuclear programmes".

1. See ENDC/144 (September 17th 1964) passim

2. ENDC/144 (September 17th 1964)

3. DC/PV 75 (May 4th, 1965), p.11

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He went on: "an integrated programme of purposeful measures can still bring us back on the road leading to a disarmed world".¹

The need for a "Package" of disarmament and arms control measures as the only plausible curb on proliferation was being formulated more forcefully. Mr. Chakravarty's own package included:

(1) An undertaking by the nuclear Powers not to transfer nuclear weapons or nuclear weapons technology to others;

(2) An undertaking not to use nuclear weapons against countries which do not possess them;

(3) An undertaking through the United Nations to safeguard the security of countries which may be threatened by Powers having a nuclear weapons capability or embarking on a nuclear weapons capability;

(4) Tangible progress towards disarmament, including a comprehensive test ban treaty, a complete freeze on production of nuclear weapons and means of delivery as well as a substantial reduction in the existing stocks; and,

(5) An undertaking by non-nuclear Powers not to acquire or manufacture nuclear weapons."

1. DC/PV 75 (May 4th 1965), PR 16

He went on:

"It is an integrated proposal of this nature which alone could solve the problem of the spread of nuclear weapons. One or two isolated measures within this integrated programme will not be adequate. For example, it is no use telling countries, some of which may be even more advanced in nuclear technology than China, that they should enter into a treaty which would only stipulate that they must not acquire or produce these weapons. Again, it is no use telling them that their security will be safeguarded by one or other of the existing nuclear Powers. Such an assurance has to be really dependable. Moreover, nations are not interested in having another Hiroshima on their soil before an assurance of this nature could come into effect. Unless the nuclear Powers and would-be nuclear Powers undertake from now on not to produce any nuclear weapons or weapons delivery vehicles and, in addition, agree to reduce their existing stock pile of nuclear weapons, there is no way of doing away with the proliferation that has already taken place or of preventing further proliferation."

This desire for a package-deal was not shared by the E.N.D.C., the highest common multiple of whose views had been neatly put by the British delegate, Lord Chalfont, the week before: "We should all concentrate our efforts on securing a firm agreement which would bind the nuclear Powers not to transfer control of nuclear weapons or to assist non-nuclear Powers in making them and which would bind the non-nuclear Powers neither to manufacture nor to

seek control of nuclear weapons".¹ He went on indeed to recommend a comprehensive test ban which he saw as "closely involved in the problem of nuclear spread" but only because "Underground tests could help other countries, non-nuclear countries, to produce nuclear weapons".²

In fact the E.N.D.C. nuclear powers were still held apart in their basic agreement about a non-proliferation treaty by the continuing, if desultory, discussion within Nato of the Multilateral Force.

1. DC/PV 74 (28.4.1965), p.17

2. DC/PV 74 (28.4.1965), pp 19-20

VII

In retrospect, what seems principally to have been lacking at this time was any real understanding, or perhaps rather acceptance, among the E.N.D.C. nuclear powers of the actual *gait* of proliferation, and of its relationship to what the still prevailing bipolarist philosophy saw as the "central strategic balance". Thus Russian statements about the Chinese nuclear programme have always used terms like "nationalist ambitions" and "political adventurism", but even careful American evaluations of it¹ avoided considering it as a natural reaction to the massive American nuclear presence in the Far East, or to Chinese experience in the Quemoy-Matsu crisis of 1958.

Equally, the French programme was interpreted by Washington in general (and dismissive) terms of prestige and frustration, rather than as the decision taken responsibly by a particular elected government in a particular political-military-historical setting, to keep open all available options, alliance and prophecy being not certainly dependable. General Eisenhower's answer to General de Gaulle's proposal in 1958 for tripartite joint strategic

1. See, e.g. Alice Langley Hsieh (of RAND Corporation): *Communist China and Nuclear Weapons in R.N. Rosencrantz (Ed)* The Dispersion of Nuclear Weapons, Columbia University Press (1964), p.157 et seq.

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war planning had included the phrase "... we cannot afford
to adopt any system which would give to our other allies,
or other free world countries, the impression that basic
decisions affecting their own vital interests are being made
without their participation".¹

But it was after all
because he feared that basic decisions affecting France's
own vital interests were being taken without her
participation that General de Gaulle had made his proposal.

This Procrustean sentiment remained active in
American official thinking to inform the Multilateral force
discussion. It was echoed in a paper much reproduced (in
various forms) by the Rand scholar Malcolm Hoag:² "If we
appeared to agree with the French claim that a national
deterrent is needed for first class status in the alliance,
we would stigmatise the others. In an alliance where all
members are proud, could anything be more divisive?"
Equally, George Bell, of the State Department, believed
that in Western Europe "in spite of Gaullist efforts to
undermine confidence in American intentions, a widespread
belief exists that the deterrent provided by our nuclear

1. 20.10.58 quoted in T.C. Weigele: The Origins of the MLF Concept 1957-60. Orbis vol. XII No. 2, Summer 1968, p.467

2. (Rand P 2594-1, P 2733 and P 2743); Foreign Affairs Jan.'63; Rosecrance (Ed) The Dispersion of Nuclear Weapons (Columbia '64); and Kissinger (Ed) Problems of National Security: A book of readings (Prager 1965).

[L]

umbrella is fully effective so that the security issue is not one of priority. What does concern several of the Western European nations, however, is the problem of prestige, of world status implied by the possession of nuclear weapons".¹ And yet no more than anyone else could he guarantee the American guarantee, or bind the future to leave it unacathed, or convince an old world that has looked on the works of Ozimandias, King of Kings ....

Mr. Pardo of Malta, not a nation to harbour great-power ambitions, put the historically better founded view to the Disarmament Commission in May 1965: "We do not believe that States deliberately decide to expend immense sums on nuclear weapons development exclusively, or even mainly, for reasons of prestige or as some sort of status symbol ... This is or may be one factor. Another and probably more important consideration is that while it is all very well to rely on friends for the protection of one's vital rights or interests, it can never be entirely certain that friends will respond as and when needed. The vital rights and interests of a state may not be considered in the same light by those on whom it relies for nuclear protection".²

1. George Ball: The Discipline of Power (Bodley Head 1968), p.203

2. 75th Meeting Disarmament Commission, p.15

The arguments used in favour of non-proliferation have always been general: that a world of many nuclear powers would be appallingly dangerous: that the alliance would be badly run. But the arguments individual governments face when deciding whether or not to keep open the nuclear option are always specific. Although the Russian and American governments have found an underground test ban desirable in theory, it has been "not negotiable" in practice because each has respectively deemed that its security would be unacceptably threatened by a one-figure number of on site-inspections or by a two-figure number of unidentified underground explosions.¹

The package approach to non-proliferation, as suggested by the Indian delegate in the spring of 1965, would have attempted to satisfy as many of the specific apprehensions of specific Nth powers as possible. But the two draft Non-Proliferation Treaties submitted respectively by the United States in August 1965 and the Soviet Union in September 1965 were both, to use Mme Myrdal's word "naked"; that is, they still sought to deal exclusively with the horizontal proliferation of nuclear

1. This situation still obtains: see Mr. Foster's statement in General Assembly, Committee I, December 5th, 1968, where he speaks of seismically unidentifiable explosions "which are of great military significance". (p.2. USIS text) and all Russian spokesmen on the comprehensive test ban.

weapons to new centres of control. Caustically the U.A.R.
delegate pointed out that the function of a Non-Proliferation
Treaty must not be "to bless and perpetuate the nuclear
monopoly and supremacy of the five Powers which possess the
bomb".¹ The chief distinction between the two drafts was
that the American draft would have permitted alliance
arrangements like the Multilateral force, where a nuclear
power committed itself to retain control over the nuclear
weapons involved, and the Soviet draft would not have.

1. ENDC PV 245, 3.3.66, p.6

["- 38 -", "VIII", "The non-aligned E.N.D.C. members made various\nsuggestions toward clothing a Non-Proliferation Treaty,\nfirst in E.N.D.C. itself and then at the XXth General\nAssembly. Although the United States and the Soviet Union\nwere firmly in agreement in opposing any such thing, the\nresolution submitted by the eight non-aligned E.N.D.C.\npowers stated specifically that a Non-Proliferation Treaty\nshould \"embody an acceptable balance of mutual\nresponsibilities and obligations of the nuclear and non-\nnuclear Powers\" and that it should \"be a step towards the\nachievement of general and complete disarmament and, more\nparticularly, nuclear disarmament\". It made no reference\nto the Multilateral force problem, and was approved by 93\nto none, with 5 abstentions. The abstainers were Cuba,\nFrance, Guinea, Pakistan and Rumania. The French and Cuban\ndelegates did not explain their votes. The Guinean\ndesignee said a N.P.T. would legalise the nuclear powers'\nmonopoly; the Rumanian said other measures were more urgent;\nand the Pakistani said the Resolution was too vague.\nThe Tanzanian voted for it as an act of faith. 28\ndelegations were absent from this vote, including the\nAlbanian, who had stated earlier that \"the danger does\nnot stem from countries which do not have atomic weapons,""]

but from certain Powers which do¹.

Another Resolution, (2030 (XX)), (which - bar France - had a unanimous vote) urged the convening of a World Disarmament Conference not later than 1967: the absence of China in particular from disarmament negotiations was becoming more and more evidently absurd and the Chinese themselves had proposed some such conference two years before.²

Because the proposed conference could have only the most tenuous connexion with the United Nations while China remained unseated there, the participants in the 1964 Cairo Conference of non-aligned countries, with whom the proposal had originated, recommended preparations be made through ordinary diplomatic channels. There has in fact been no progress on this.

The Vietnam war continued in 1966 to make agreement between the United States and the Soviet Union unlikely. Although each super-power had its Non-Proliferation Treaty draft on the table, when E.N.D.C. reconvened in Geneva on January 27th 1966 the Multilateral force option, rather than the Multilateral force project itself, which was now moribund,

1. (Plenary 1382, 19.11.65., p.2). Resolution 2028 (XX); text at p.206 United Nations and Disarmament 1945-65.

2. Chou en Lai's message to heads of state of 17.10.64

- 40 -

was what continued to hold them apart. Each draft
continued "naked", though President Johnson's "Message"
to the reopening of E.N.D.C. mentioned the need to
"strengthen the United Nations, and other international
security arrangements. Meanwhile", he said, "the nations
that do not seek the nuclear path can be sure that they
will have our strong support against threats of nuclear
blackmail"¹. He also referred to the possibility of "a
freeze on offensive and defensive strategic bombers and
missiles designed to carry nuclear weapons."²

The first neutral to speak in the new session,
after the Russian and the American spokesmen, was Mr. Obi,
of Nigeria, and he repeated the perennial points that it
"would be wrong to approach the problem of non-proliferation
from the sole angle of the preoccupation with the
maintenance or otherwise of the status quo in Central
Europe ... A universal approach ... is not only essential
but ... inescapable."³ He also repeated that "The thesis
that the desire of hitherto non-nuclear States to acquire
nuclear weapons is only a matter of prestige", and the top

1. ENDC/165, p.2

2. ENDC/165, p.3

3. ENDC/PV 235, p.31, January 27th 1966

[L.C]

- 41 -

table, and so on, was glib, and that they have legitimate
and genuine fears which "any realistic approach to the
problem of proliferation" must take account of.¹

He went on to list the non-proliferation package that
must have been becoming only too familiar to the tongues
of the non-aligned and the outer ears, at least, of the
super-powers. He suggested that the nuclear powers should
argue about non-dissemination and the Multilateral force
option in private and then bring their agreement to the
conference table as a useful contribution to the non-
proliferation package.

He was supported by his fellow non-aligned
spokesmen, the quality of whose contributions to the
discussion, both in insight and in informedness, was
constantly increasing. Mme Myrdal's speech of February 24th
was perhaps intellectually the most powerful, and raised
the most difficult questions for the super-powers to answer.
Doubting the "simple division of countries into nuclear and
non-nuclear", she broke the "spectrum of positions" into
categories: "the nuclear-super-powers, other powers with at
present certain nuclear-weapon-capabilities, states with
potential nuclear-weapon capabilities, and definitely non-
nuclear weapon countries. Can we really hope to encompass

1. ENDC/PV 235, 27.1.1966, p.31

these highly different situations with one treaty?"¹

Mr. Fisher of the United States and Mr. Tejarapkin of the U.S.S.R. each made an attempt to answer the following week. Mr. Fisher argued that it would be a mistake to "link the entry into force of one measure with that of another for fear we might not get either"², and that it was a misapprehension that a "non-proliferation treaty is advantageous to nuclear weapon States and disadvantageous to non-nuclear weapon states".³ Mr. Tejarapkin argued that "it would hardly be conducive to our purpose to tie up a series of measures in a single package or to make agreement on any one of these measures dependent on the implementation of other measures. In our opinion this would complicate negotiations which are difficult enough already".⁴

That neither the Americans nor the Russians took the argument beyond statement on this or any other occasion was the great weakness of their case. The United Kingdom, the third nuclear power at E.N.D.C., in general took the attitude that although it was necessary to negotiate the Non-Proliferation Treaty naked, a naked Non-Proliferation

1. ENDC/PV 243; 24.2.1966, p.8

2. ENDC/PV 245; 3.3.1966, p.28

3. ENDC/PV 245; 3.3.1966, p.26

4. ENDC/PV 245 3.3.1966, p.35

- 43 -

Treaty not swiftly succeeded by other measures would not
stick. Effectively, this was also the view taken by the
other Nato E.N.D.C. powers, Canada and Italy; the Soviet
Union's allies' line was, apart from the Rumanians, totally
homogeneous. The Rumanian view was very close to that of
the eight non-aligned powers.

At the end of the E.N.D.C.'s 1966 sessions the
non-aligned eight tried again, presenting a "joint
memorandum on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons"¹
which recalled the five principles embodied in the General
Assembly Resolution they had sponsored the year before²:

"(a) The treaty should be void of any loopholes which might permit nuclear or non-nuclear Powers to proliferate, directly or indirectly, nuclear weapons in any form;

(b) The treaty should embody an acceptable balance of mutual responsibilities and obligations of the nuclear and non-nuclear Powers;

(c) The treaty should be a step towards the achievement of general and complete disarmament and, more particularly, nuclear disarmament;

(d) There should be acceptable and workable provisions to ensure the effectiveness of the treaty; and

(e) Nothing in the treaty should adversely affect the right of any group of States to conclude regional treaties in order to ensure the total absence of nuclear weapons in their respective territories."

1. ENDC/178, 19.8.1966

2. 2020 (xx)

[L]

- 44 -

In fact the log-jam was about to shift; if only to reform a little further down-stream. Apprehensions about a great sudden burst of proliferation had subsided during the early sixties. They were calmed in part by the doctrinal self-confidence of the bipolarists, who felt that the very magnitude of the American and Russian nuclear missile forces put them beyond the reach of competition, and all the other nuclear forces must therefore remain beyond the justification of necessity, or indeed of anything else but a rather phony prestige. But as Leonard Beaton was now pointing out¹ the rapid spread of civil nuclear technology was placing ever more sizeable-and weaponable - quantities of plutonium into the hands of ever more governments, which in turn were becoming ever less certain about the ability of the existing powers to maintain the world's peace or even its stability.² Slowly too, weaknesses in the

1. Leonard Beaton: "Must the Bomb Spread?", Penguin 1966; "Capabilities of Non-Nuclear Powers" in Alastair Buchan (Ed.) "A World of Nuclear Powers?", Prentice Hall, 1966; etc.

2. See Adelphi Paper No. 29, "The Control of Proliferation: Three Views" (October 1966); Sir Solly Zuckerman; Alva Myrdal; Lester Pearson. See also "A World of Nuclear Powers?", Alastair Buchan (Ed.) (1966), a collection of background papers specially written for the "International Assembly on Nuclear Weapons", a meeting sponsored by the Canadian Institute of International Affairs, the Institute of Strategic Studies, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the American Assembly of Columbia University in which some sixty people, from twenty-five countries, participated. (Footnote 2 continued on page 44a)

[L]

military doctrines established in the early sixties were emerging: the unwillingness of events to coincide with even the best funded and best calculated expectations; the lapse of time since that misleadingly formative, most ideal, pattern-like, and quite unrepeatable event, the Cuba crisis of October 1962; the China phenomenon; the world-wide decline of alliance solidarity; the evident sea-change in the applicability of military power - all these refused to fit the conventional wisdom of the early sixties, and combined to make an atmosphere of gloom and pessimism.

On August 26th 1966 President Johnson leapt to the rescue: "Our common task", he declared, unequivocally addressing the Russian government, "is this: to search for every possible area of agreement that might enlarge the prospect for cooperation between the United States and the Soviet Union .... [The Vietnam] conflict does not have to stop us from finding new ways of dealing with one another."¹ It was the beginning of the American policy of bridge building, and among the earliest bridges mentioned appears to have been the possibility of Russian-American agreement on a Non-Proliferation Treaty.

1. Speech at Idaho Falls, 26.8.66. USIS text.

IX

Russian-American agreement even limited to a Non-Proliferation Treaty required a fairly substantial revolution in Washington thought, although the idea that super-powers as such had interests in common was by now quite familiar.

The State Department had little enthusiasm for a Non-Proliferation Treaty, because one which was negotiable with the Soviet Union would probably discriminate against West Germany - and kill any kind of Multilateral Force. But the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency and the Department of Defense favoured a Non-Proliferation Treaty to the extent that non-proliferation was both a recognised arms control measure and an essential element in the prevailing strategic doctrine. Moreover the Multilateral Force was the darling of neither.

British enthusiasm for a Non-Proliferation Treaty - to which Michael Stewart lent his authority during his Washington visit in October 1965 - had been deemed somewhat uncritical. It certainly irritated the State Department, whose concern for West German status and loyalty had been sharpened by divisive French blandishments, particularly as there was no sign of British willingness to give up independent control of its nuclear weapons, which would have simplified non-discrimination within NATO.

[c]

Mr. McNamara made a remarkable statement to the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy in March 1966, endorsing a Senate Resolution, which in turn expressed support of the President's Non-Proliferation efforts. Among other things he said: "the decisions on this matter will not be made only in Washington, Moscow, London, Paris and Peking, they will be made in the capitals of the 'threshold countries'."¹ He went on to point out that the achievement of an atmosphere in which such countries could decide that the acquisition of nuclear weapons was not in their national interest depended "upon the development of a comprehensive programme"². "Since the Non-Proliferation Treaty is essentially an act of self-denial on the part of potential nuclear states, we cannot expect potential nuclear powers to accept these restraints upon themselves unless we take steps in a third area: we too must be willing to accept both restraints and obligations."³

This percipient and catholic view was not shared by Mr. McNamara's colleagues⁴ and when the President's Idaho Falls speech was followed up, it was the "naked" line

1. March 7th, 1966; USIS text p.2

2. March 7th, 1966; USIS text p.3

3. March 7th, 1966; USIS text p.4

4. See Mr. Fisher's remarks at E.N.D.C. four days before; quoted at p. 42 above

- 48 -

that Mr. Fisher and Mr. Tsarapkin had backed in E.N.D.C.
that prevailed. The Joint Communique¹ issued at the end
of Chancellor Erhard's visit to Washington in late
September 1966 mentioned simply the necessity of putting an
end to the proliferation of nuclear weapons under national
control and of subordinating alliance nuclear arrangements
to this criterion. It was surmised in Western Germany²
that secret Soviet-American talks had already taken place,
and this was effectively confirmed a few days later when
the State Department announced that President Johnson and
Mr. Gromyko had recently spent "almost two hours" discussing
Disarmament matters, including non-proliferation. The
spokesman added that a Non-Proliferation Treaty was a matter
for the Atlantic Alliance "at large and no agreement should
be reached without consultation."³ But Soviet-American
discussions continued, and both parties declared on
October 20th, to the Political Committee of the United
Nations General Assembly, that agreement would soon be
possible. Together with the British and others they
co-sponsored a Resolution calling on all parties meanwhile
to refrain from actions which might hamper agreement on

1. 26.9.66

2. See Die Welt, September 25th 1966

3. October 12th 1966; USIS text

a Non-Proliferation Treaty.¹ This General Assembly also accepted, though rather half-heartedly, a Pakistani proposal for a Conference of non-nuclear weapons states to consider among other matters the security of non-nuclear states and the peaceful applications of nuclear energy.²

Soviet-American talks continued through the autumn and winter (with some British participation), but in February 1967 a storm blew up. The Kiesinger Coalition Government, whose attitude to the United States was rather more open-minded (or equivocal) than that of Dr. Erhard's Government, looked on the sudden agreement between the United States and the Soviet Union on the subject of non-proliferation with some suspicion. This was hardly surprising in view of the persistent venom with which the Soviet Union and its Allies, in E.N.D.C., in the Disarmament Commission, and in their propaganda, had concentrated on the applicability of a Non-Proliferation Treaty to the Federal Republic.³ Dr. Kiesinger even referred to the "Atomic

1. The Russian spokesman said this was to "forestall" West German moves to secure access to nuclear weapons.

2. Resolution 21538 (XXI). After being postponed the Conference met in Geneva, August 29th - September 28th, 1968. See below p. 92

3. The State Department is said to have recommended some mitigation of this campaign to the Russians, and to have stated that it was putting obstacles in the way of a treaty that Dr. Kiesinger in principle accepted. See Theo Loch: Estrangement between America and Europe, Europa-Archiv. 2/1968. This intervention was not very effective.

complicity" which was being erected above the Atlantic
Alliance. Particularly objectionable, it appeared that in
the text more or less agreed by the United States, the
United Kingdom and the Soviet Union, the "European option"
had been barred (i.e., the option a uniting Europe might have
of becoming a nuclear power); that non-nuclear powers were
to be required to accept I.A.E.A. safeguards and inspection
over all their nuclear activities; and that the explosion
of nuclear devices for peaceful purposes would be forbidden
to them.

1. Bons: 27.2.67

[Lc]

X

The British Government had now come to find its
whole-heARTed zeal for a Non-Proliferation Treaty something
of an embarrassment to its second application to join the
E.E.C.: the first application had come to grief after
another Anglo-American Muddle, the Nassau Agreement.
A speech in which Lord Chalfont remarked that those who
opposed the Non-Proliferation Treaty would be condemning
the world to twenty or thirty years' precarious and
dangerous existence, was noticed in France,¹ and elsewhere,
and considered not merely anti-German, but anti-European.
Mr. Wilson did some swift fence-mending on a visit to Bonn
and a few weeks later Lord Chalfont was describing the
Non-Proliferation Treaty as "a quite small step towards
other measures of arms control" and declaring that "it is
less important that the Treaty should be signed immediately
and perhaps too precipitately than that the international
community should continue to engage itself in a dynamic
strategy of non-proliferation". ² A little later still
he was taking up the cause of Euratom in the arguments
that were taking place over inspection and safeguards.

1. Le Monde; 16.2.67

2. House of Lords Hansard. Vol.280 No.121, Wednesday, March 8th 1967. Col. 1533

- 52 -

During the spring of 1967 the negotiations within Nato which had previously been neglected began; just what had allowed the State Department and the Foreign Office to suppose they might be omitted, is not clear, unless it was the belief, expressed by a highly respected State Department Adviser during the campaign for the Multilateral Force, that "the secret of leadership is the fait accompli". First reactions in Washington to Bonn's alarm were unsympathetic, explaining it in terms of hard-line right-wing nationalism - which scarcely improved the atmosphere. Nor did a remark Mr. Kossygin was reported to have made in London to the effect that Western Germany would have to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty, whether she liked it or no.¹ Mr. Kossygin was also ambiguous about whether the Soviet Union might be willing to discuss with the United States a curb on the deployment of Anti-Ballistic Missile Defence, and on this, the next growth point for the central nuclear arms race, several beady non-nuclear eyes were fixed.

Consultations within Nato now started in earnest, but it was becoming clear that the treaty, as it reputedly stood, would not satisfy the security or the technological requirements of the "threshold" powers; or of anyone else.

1. 10.2.67. He may have been mistranslated.

- 53 -

The relevant European members of Nato - particularly the Federal Republic and Italy - were also members of Euratom, and the Euratom Commission made it clear in April that it was not prepared to accept any discriminatory system of inspection and safeguards such as was being proposed.¹

France took no part in the discussion ... It was announced that the Japanese Foreign Office was getting in touch with non-nuclear members of E.N.D.C. "in an effort to prevent the committee from drafting a treaty which will only serve the interests of the nuclear powers".² Various American reassurances were given to the Federal Republic, particularly about the "European option"³ and these, of course, were denounced by the Russian press, which, together with Russia's allies at E.N.D.C., kept up their destructively anti-German chorus. Soviet-American discussions began again in late April after what American officials described as a greenlight from the Nato allies; a West German official said "it looks more like a yellow light to us".⁴

1. Le Monde; 10.4.67

2. Kyodo; 23.2.67

3. New York Times; 30.3.67

4. New York Times; 21.4.67

[L.C.]

- 54 -

Another kind of negotiation was going on at the same time in the E.N.O.C., where objections were equally strong, particularly to the proposed Treaty's lack of guarantees and to the prohibition of peaceful explosions. The "acceptable balance of mutual responsibilities and obligations" was mentioned again and again. Lord Chalfont opined that the "great powers ... are understandably very unlikely to begin to diamantate their own armouries while the possibility of what has been called "horizontal" proliferation still exists"¹, which of course brought China's nuclear ambitions to mind. Mme Myrdal emphasised again the package: the "logical interdependence" of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, the banning of underground tests, and the cut-off. "An increase in confidence would be gained ... if we were informed that an agreement between the super-powers to halt the Anti-Ballistic Missile race was nearing completion".² The Rumanian delegate gave a vigorous and rallying pop talk to all and sundry³... At some meetings there was no speaker at all.⁴

1. ENDC/PV 299, p.8; 25.5.67

2. ENDC/PV 30, p.14; 30.6.67

3. ENDC/PV 320; 8.8.67

4. ENDC/PV 322; and 324

- 55 -

On August 24th, 1967, the United States and the Soviet Union each submitted the identical text of a Non-Proliferation Treaty; and in their sponsoring statements Mr. Foster and Mr. Rosenthal each mentioned that they were discussing security guarantees. Negotiations changed gear yet again.

[LC]

XI

The proposed treaty was indeed quite "naked";¹ it consisted of a preamble in which a number of desirable eventualities were referred to, an article forbidding dissemination from nuclear to non-nuclear powers, an article forbidding non-nuclear powers to proliferate by reception or manufacture; an article on the right to peaceful uses; articles dealing with ratification, amendment, review after five years; "unlimited duration"; and grounds for withdrawal. The inspection article was left blank and some of the language (particularly about prohibited recipients of nuclear weapons or weapons technology) was decidedly more porous than in the 1965 American and Russian drafts.

If the super-powers expected unanimous applause they did not get it: parturient montes, nascit ovum curati. Mr. Caracciole of Italy noted that "some of our suggestions have not yet found a place in the text of the treaty", particularly non-discrimination as between the two categories of signatories, the problem of security, and the "means to be adopted in order to avoid discouraging the development of European unity".² Mr. Mulley, of the United Kingdom, (who had by then succeeded Lord Chalfont), welcomed the draft

1. ENDC/192

2. ENDC/PV 326, p.10

[L]

- 57 -

and warned against insisting on concurrent measures, for fear
of making "the best the enemy of the good"; he also reminded
the super-powers of their responsibilities, particularly in
relation to "the development of anti-ballistic missiles
[which] threatens an increased impetus to the nuclear arms
race and not its cessation".¹ The Brazilian delegate said
that the drafts "contained practically only obligations for
the non-nuclear nations, while none of the commitments
suggested by the non-nuclear nations have been taken into
account". There was a "manifest imbalance of obligations".
"Nations that do not possess nuclear armaments are asked to
sign a binding commitment never to acquire them, while
nations that already have at their disposal the most
impressive arsenals ever assembled by human ingenuity will be
legally free to increase at will the number and the
destructive potential of such weapons". He went on to
mention guarantee, and the need for a "universal application
of safeguards concerning fissionable material and the
undesirability of banning peaceful nuclear explosions if
they were conducted under international control".²
One Myrdal of Sweden, spoke of the need for "more binding
obligations on the main Powers" to follow up this particular

1. ENDC/PV 326, pp 17 and 18; 29.8.67

2. ENDC/PV 327 pp 4 - 7; 31.8.67

[L]

- 58 -

treaty with an underground test ban and a cut-off agreement.
"The Non-Proliferation Treaty has to be seen as a part, and
only a part, of an integrated whole of partial disarmament
measures in the field of nuclear arms".¹ She also
presented a draft text for Article III, the article on
international controls left blank in the Soviet Union-United
States text. The Czechoslovak delegate mentioned security
guarantees and suggested the nuclear powers undertake not to
use nuclear weapons against the territories of non-nuclear
weapon States. The Nigerian delegate, Mr. Kolo, saying his
delegation "sincerely hopes that no-one here will take the
view that the draft texts ... are near what can be considered
adequate", and that "our main task is only just beginning",
went on to mention the comprehensive test ban, security
assurances, and non-discriminatory verification. The
Bulgarian praised the treaty and particularly the preamble.
Mr. Trivedi of India referred with typical vigour, to
"attempts to confuse the issue by vivisecting the corporate
body of non-proliferation as it were, and then lumping part
of that amputated portion of non-proliferation with other
aspects of disarmament, such as the reduction of nuclear
delivery vehicles or the reduction of stocks of nuclear
weapons, and saying that it is difficult to have all these
things done together, that the best is the enemy of the good,

1. ENDC/PV 327, p.9; 31.8167

- 59 -

that we must not be over-ambitious, and so on, do not help matters. What is pertinent is that proliferation has to be prevented; and, as General Assembly Resolution 2028 (XX) points out, proliferation by both nuclear-weapon and non-nuclear-weapon Powers has to be prevented ... What I want to emphasise is that it is not desirable, profitable, effective, appropriate, or adequate to vivisect the integral problem of the proliferation of nuclear weapons."¹

After this bubblingly lukewarm but hardly unpredictable reception, Mr. Foster sought to persuade the conference that, as the headline of the USIS backgrounder on his speech put it, the "Geneva treaty would put heavy burdens on nuclear powers".² Among the obligations that the treaty put on the nuclear powers, he said, was that of "achieving the cessation of the nuclear arms race at the earliest possible date", but only four days after his speech on September 14th, Mr. McNamara announced the American Government's decision to embark on an Anti-Ballistic Missile programme. Another "significant obligation" Mr. Foster mentioned was the nuclear powers' giving up the right of "selling last year's sophisticated weapons to other countries". He concluded by assuring "all delegations that the co-chairmen have done their utmost, within the

1. ENDC/PV 327, pp 26 and 27; 31.8.67

2. 18.9.67

- 60 -

the inescapable limits of what is realistic and feasible
to comply with all the basic principles and requirements
in the joint memoranda and in Resolution 2028 (XX).

In our view the draft does comply with these principles
and requirements".¹ Mr. Roshchin did not at this time
seek to answer objections.

1. ENDC/PV 330, pp 4-8; 14.9.67

- 61 -

[L]

## XII

During the following months, various improvements to the August 24th drafts were proposed in E.N.D.C. The United States having announced its A.B.M. programme, Mr. Foster's deputy at E.N.D.C. declared that the "decision did not lessen the desirability of a non-proliferation treaty to other nations" and indeed that American A.B.M. would improve the quality of American guarantees to its Asian friends. "I believe our anti-ballistic missile deployment will favour non-proliferation".¹ Discussions were now initiated in Neto about the possibility of Anti-Ballistic Missile defences for Europe which might reasonably be expected to involve devolution of control over nuclear warheads. The Soviet Union put on an unprecedentedly massive display of military hardware, which included a nuclear Orbital Bombardment missile.² This apparently was not considered by the United States administration to be incompatible with the Space treaty, because it had not been tested with a nuclear weapon in situ. It was less than a year since the two super-powers had joined in sponsoring a United Nations Resolution calling on all parties to refrain from actions which might hamper agreement on a Non-Proliferation Treaty.³

1. ENDC/PV 331, p.15; 19.9.67

2. Russian descriptions of this system do not qualify it as "ballistic"

3. See p.49 above

[L]

In E.N.D.C. there was no procedure for decision-
taking, or even for the detailed discussion and amendment of
the drafts before the committee. It became clear that the
intention of the co-chairmen was that they should "consider"
amendments in private, and eventually come up with an
"amended" text. The suggestion of a drafting committee was
not taken up. As Mr. Foster perhaps euphemistically put it
after a procedural tussle in December 1967, "for several years
it has been the practice of the Committee to utilise the
co-chairmen as its agent with regard to procedures".¹
Because it had been set up not by the General Assembly, but
by agreement between the United States and the Soviet Union
at the time of the Zorin-McCloy talks, and then "approved"
by the General Assembly, the Committee had become as
difficult to reform as the House of Lords ....

During the winter of 1967-68 the procedural
inadequacies became more and more evident. Tempers in
E.N.D.C. were roughened by the fact that negotiations had
been carried on elsewhere and with little regard, if any, to
the opinions expressed in E.N.D.C. year-in, year-out, since
its formation. Mr. Trivedi particularly objected to the
negative use of the argument that "one has to be realistic.
Surely realism should be a criterion to be applied to all

1. ENDC/PV 354, p.8; 7.12.67

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States. If it is unrealistic to believe that the nuclear-weapon Powers will agree to a treaty which prevents the proliferation of their own weapons, it is equally unrealistic to assume that the non-nuclear nations, and particularly the non-aligned nations which are facing the threat of nuclear weapons, will be enthusiastic about a discriminatory and ineffective treaty, a treaty which not only does not add to their security but in fact increases their insecurity."¹ He quoted Zorin-McCloy on the need for balance; and, on the question of security, said that "the threat to the security of non-nuclear weapon countries comes from the arsenal of nuclear weapon countries".

Nevertheless, throughout the next three months the non-aligned countries, and others, advanced suggestions for improving both the text and the scope of the August draft. Mr. Castaneda, of Mexico, noticed that not only was the declaration of intent about actual measures of disarmament relegated to the non-binding preamble, but the wording was such as to "make agreement on each of the measures listed entirely conditional upon its inclusion within the framework of a treaty on general and complete disarmament."² The U.A.R. delegate, Mr. Khallaf, noticed

1. ENDC/PV 334, p.6; 28.9.67

2. ENDC/PV 336, p.9

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that the draft would not forbid a non-nuclear signatory
from assisting a non-nuclear, non-signatory ~~towards~~ *shocks*
to the
acquisition of nuclear weapons;¹ he presumably had Israel
in mind, or South Africa, both of which Russian propaganda
insisted was helping and being helped by Western Germany
towards nuclear weapons.

The various formal amendments and more general
suggestions (submitted by Sweden, Mexico, the U.A.R., Rumania,
Italy, Brazil, Nigeria and the United Kingdom), for
improvement were punctuated with assurances from the co-chair-
men that they had "met many times to discuss all the
suggestions which have been made" and that, all things
considered, the Treaty should not be encumbered with other
issues. Neither co-chairman otherwise took much active part
in the discussion; to some extent the American view was at
this time being put by the Canadian delegation and the
Russian view by the Polish, Bulgarian or Czech. Occasionally,
again, there was no speaker.

On December 5th, the United States and United
Kingdom spokesmen - but not that of the Soviet Union-
declared that their governments would accept such international
safeguards as the Treaty might specify in their own
territories, "subject to exclusions for national security

1. ENDC/PV340, pp 4-5; 19.10.67

[L.C.]

reasons only". This was to demonstrate that a safeguards
system would not impose "industrial or economic burdens on
treaty signatories". Mr. Caracciolo of Italy agreed that if
"other nuclear Powers" followed with similar declarations
"it will prove to be a great step towards the conclusion of
our work".¹ The Russian delegate did not take the hint.

The Committee wound up for the Christmas recess
on December 14th 1967 with the co-chairmen evidently
expecting to agree a draft complete with an Article III before
it re-assembled on January 18th. This they did;² the General
Assembly having kindly agreed to postpone the Conference of
Non-Nuclear Weapons States from March to the next
September³, and itself to reconvene to consider a N.P.T.
as soon as E.N.D.C. was ready to send them one.

1. ENDC/PV 353, p.9

2. ENDC 192/Rev 1. 5.12.67

3. See p.49 above

- 66 -

XIII

Pravda now declared that the "obstacles standing in the road of conclusion of a treaty on the Non-Proliferation of nuclear weapons, resistance to it, is nothing but a manifestation of the imperialist course ..."¹ - or, alternatively, German Revanchism. The New York Times, which a year before had been urging the United States to "do a better job of education among its friends and allies" on the merits of the treaty² was now declaring it "hard to believe that any of the nuclear-capable nations ... will be able to resist Soviet, American, and world pressure³ along with completion of the treaty this spring".³ The London Times, more awake to the realities of the situation, headlined its leading article "Last Thrilling Episode?" and warned the super-powers that if they wanted a treaty they would have to take account of "the more valid objections" of the non-nuclear countries.⁴

The principal amendments the co-chairmen had made to their draft of August 24th 1967 were the following: the gist of Paragraph 8 of the preamble, which dealt with "the
1. Quoted by Tase 23.1.68
2. 23.2.67
3. International Herald Tribune; 23.1.68
4. 15.1.68

[c]

- 67 -

potential benefits from nuclear explosions", now appeared in the text as Article V: these were to be available to non-nuclear weapon powers not only through "appropriate international procedures", but, also, (new language), "on a bilateral basis". The declaration of intent about further disarmament measures remained in the preamble; but a new Article VI required signatories to "undertake to pursue negotiations in good faith regarding cessation of the nuclear arms race and disarmament". The preambular paragraph about nuclear free zones now became Article VII. There were useful alterations to the procedures for ratification and amendment. The review conference after five years reappeared, but without the British-suggested amendment that it consider the preamble as well as the text. Article X(2) now allowed for a conference after twenty five years to consider the continuation of the Treaty. The major advance lay in the new Control article, Article III, and in the expansion in Article IV of rights of participation in peaceful uses of nuclear energy. The successful compromise between the United States and the Soviet Union in Article III lay in a phrase allowing States, "either individually or together with other States", to negotiate an inspection arrangement with I.A.E.A.: Euratom would thus be able to do so on behalf of its members. Mr. Fisher, of the United States, moreover made clear that "in order to avoid duplication,

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the I.A.E.A. should make appropriate use of existing records and safeguards."¹ Also that #forever, everything not expressly prohibited in the treaty was permitted.

Once again, the super-powers tried to persuade the non-nuclear weapon powers that this was indeed the treaty they desired; and once again the non-nuclear powers, in E.N.D.C. and outside, assured them that this was not exactly so.

When the E.N.D.C. met again, on January 18th, the Italian delegate, Mr. Caracciolo, while welcoming progress and urging speed to meet the General Assembly's deadline of March 15th², suggested "that it would be desirable to review the various proposals that have been made by delegations so as to determine to what extent they have been taken into account, or the reasons which have prevented their acceptance"³. Mr. Mulley welcomed the improvements but repeated that "if it is fair to describe the danger of proliferation as an obstacle to disarmament, it is equally fair to say that without some progress in disarmament, the Non-Proliferation Treaty will not last".⁴ He suggested the

1. ENDC/PV 357, p.17; 18.1.68

2. ENDC/210

3. ENDC/PV 357, p.25; 18.1.68

4. ENDC/PV 358, p.9; 23.1.68

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Committee meet more often. General Burns of Canada raised a query about international controls over "explosive services arranged bilaterally" and enquired after security assurances, suggesting "action parallel to but separate from the Treaty".¹

Outside E.N.D.C., the West German government took up a wait-and-see attitude; so did the Japanese. The Chinese, who had all along attacked the Non-Proliferation Treaty negotiations as designed to establish a nuclear monopoly said of the new draft: "Whatever changes there may be, the aim of the treaty remains the same, that is, to deprive the non-nuclear nations which are under U.S.-Soviet nuclear threat of their right to develop nuclear weapons and to place some countries under the U.S. imperialist and Soviet revisionist nuclear umbrella so that U.S. imperialism and Soviet revisionism may maintain their status as nuclear overlords".² Mr. Messmer, the French Defence Minister, said simply: "Ce traité est un mauvais traité".³ He is also said to have said that it aimed merely to castrate the impotent.

1. ENDC/PV 358, p.12 and 22; 23.1.68

2. Jenmin Jih Pao. January 24th 1968, reported by N.C.N.A.

3. Le Monde; 26.1.68

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A vigorous, indeed breathless, critique of the new draft came from Mr. Ecobesco, of Rumania, on February 6th, when he asked twelve awkward questions, about, among other things, the discrimination involved in applying controls only to the activities of the non-nuclear weapon countries, and not, for instance, to the nuclear powers' guarantee not to transfer nuclear weapons. And what about the rest of the Rackage?¹ Once again Mr. Fisher deplored the "tendency to view a commitment to nuclear disarmament by the non-weapon States as *quid pro quo* for the renunciation of nuclear weapons by other States² - for most of whom, after all, the nuclear weapons option was not open. Mr. Roshchin avoided that line of argument. He simply referred to the autumn's crop of amendments and declared that "it now seems legally inadmissible to consider additions and amendments to a text which has in fact been withdrawn".³ Mr. Ceracciole rightly disagreed: they were discussing not a new text, but a revised draft. Mme Myrdal and Mr. de Aranju Castro of Brazil continued the attack, particularly on the absence of obligations on the nuclear-weapon states.

1. ENDC/PV 362, pp 4-7

2. ENDC/PV 362, p.9

3. ENDC/PV 362, p.15

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The Soviet Union, supported by Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria and Poland, found a perhaps convenient diversion when a United States B52 carrying hydrogen bombs crashed in Greenland. The Committee began to meet more frequently, Romania's questions went unanswered, and a new emphasis on the benefits of peaceful uses emerged; and also, from Mr. Roshchin, the implication that non-signatories would not be allowed to enjoy these benefits ...¹ The Russian press accused the Romanians of playing West Germany's game.² The autumn's amendments were re-tabled, and Mr. Kolo of Nigeria reminded the super powers who it was they were really negotiating with: "a treaty on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons is certainly not directed principally at the vast majority of States which have no early prospects of producing or acquiring nuclear weapons or nuclear explosive devices; it is directed principally at those which are already, or will soon be, in a position to do so."³

What appeared to be a first contribution from the nuclear powers to the non-proliferation package desired by the non-aligned powers came on March 7th 1968 when a Draft

1. ENDC/PV 366, p.11; 16.2.68

2. Le Monde; 17.3.68

3. ENDC/PV 371, p.11; 28.2.68

Resolution for the Security Council on Security Assurances¹ was presented to E.N.D.C. by the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Each of these countries proposed to back it with a unilateral declaration of intention.² On March 11th these countries' delegates elaborated somewhat on these intentions - which in fact did not go beyond their existing obligations under the United Nations Charter - with varying enthusiasm. Mr. Foster announced that "there have been few days in the life of this Committee as important as this one"³ and Mr. Roshchin, that the draft Resolution "properly solves the problem of assuring the security of non-nuclear weapon states parties"⁴ to the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Mr. Porter, speaking for the United Kingdom, noted that it was the "Security Council which is entrusted with the primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security"⁵. In fact the problem of "guarantees", which had been haunting advocates of a Non-Proliferation Treaty for years, had proved insoluble; and outside some far more general system of arms control and disarmament than the Non-Proliferation Treaty represented, it looked like remaining insoluble.

1. ENDC/222 u.3.68

2. See p. 77 below

3. ENDC/PV 375, p.6; 11.3.68

4. ENDC/PV 375, p.8; 11.3.68

5. ENDC/PV 375, p.10; 11.3.68

After they had gone into some detail about what
little they had found acceptable, and what a lot not, in the
various amendments that had been suggested, the co-chairmen
finally produced a further amended Draft¹ on March 14th.

The preamble now mentioned the desirability of
completing the Partial Test Ban; Article VI on "negotiations
relating to the cessation of the nuclear arms race" was
more strongly worded; the "purposes of the preamble"
became subject to the review conference after five years,
and to similar conferences subsequently convenable at
five year intervals. The alterations were minor; and
dissatisfaction remained, to be next ventilated at the
United Nations.

1. ENDC/225, Amendment A

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XIV

The Political Committee of the General Assembly started to discuss the latest draft at the end of April 1968. A massive American underground test on April 26th attracted some comment. The draft was strongly recommended by the United States and the Soviet Union, and received enthusiastic support from Byelorussia and the Ukraine - U.N. members not, perhaps, too likely to sign or implement the treaty. Otherwise it was clear that the E.N.D.C. had been an accurate microcosm: the "security assurances" were widely judged inadequate, and, because action in the Security Council is subject to the veto of its permanent members, were seen as directed against China rather than against nuclear threats and aggression as such.

It was several times mentioned that this was a treaty to stop the proliferation of nuclear powers, and that there should now be one to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons. African states expressed anxiety about South Africa acquiring nuclear weapons. Some countries - including South Africa - made it clear that though they might sign, they would not ratify the treaty until they knew precisely what the safeguards arrangements might be - which would in turn put off the date of ratification of several African states. The Pakistani delegate said: "Even if almost all the non-nuclear states signed and

[Lc]

- 75 -

ratified the treaty, and the near-nuclear weapon states did not, the main purpose of the treaty would be defeated.¹ The delegate of Ireland, decennial protagonist of a N.P.T., recommended signature and ratification now, amendment later; and that the conference of Non Nuclear Weapon States, now due to meet in August, should formulate further agreements. Mr. Rusk spoke optimistically about talks with the Soviet Union on a strategic missile freeze. Other American officials hinted again that non-signatories would probably find themselves out in the cold as far as assistance in peaceful uses was concerned² - as Mr. Roshchin had already said for the Soviet Union in Geneva.³

The draft was further revised in the Political Committee. The preamble acquired a new paragraph "recalling that ... States must refrain ... from the threat or use of force ..."; and articles IV and V were altered to emphasise and extend the rights of non-nuclear powers to benefit from the peaceful applications of nuclear power. It was then "commended" by the Political Committee, by 92 votes to 4, with 22 abstentions; and subsequently by the General Assembly by 95 to 4, with 21 abstentions. The

1. A/C 1/PV 1566, pp 84-5

2. New York Times; 24.4.68, p.1

3. See p.71 above

[L.C.]

- 76 -

Treaty's four opponents were Algeria, Cuba, Tanzania, and Zambia, all of whom objected to its inequalities:¹
Mr. Nyerere said of it, in Peking, "This is the first time that a tremendous and far-reaching human discovery is made the monopoly of the few".²

Among the abstainers, was France, whose delegate M. Gerard announced that while "France ... will behave in the future exactly as the States adhering to the Treaty"¹, the real question was not the treaty: "Nor can it be the more confirmation by the international community of the monopoly of the Powers which at this time happen to possess this capability. The real question is ... the complete disappearance of nuclear weapons".³ He went on, referring to the "security assurances": "France believes that the nations of the world will receive the guarantees of security to which they have the right to aspire only when the world has embarked on the road toward nuclear disarmament and on condition that such disarmament is carried out to the full".⁴ President Johnson, in New York for the vote on the Non-Proliferation Treaty declared that "What we have achieved here today, few men would have dared to even

1. A/PV 1672, p.3; 12.6.68

2. N.C.N.A.; 21.6.68. Speech at Farewell Banquet

3. A/PV 1672, p.6; 12.6.68

4. A/PV 1672, p.7; 12.6.68

- 77 -

hope for a decade ago"¹; and Mr. Kuznetsov, for the Soviet Union, described the treaty as "a great step towards eliminating the threat of a destructive nuclear war".²

Lord Caradon more equivocally referred to a "feeling of achievement".³

A few days later the Security Council considered the formal declarations made by the three nuclear powers active in C.N.D.C., and voted on their resolution⁴ which welcomed those. The three Powers affirmed their intention, as permanent members of the Council "to seek immediate Security Council action to provide assistance, in accordance with the Charter, to any non-nuclear-weapon State Party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons that is a victim of an act of aggression or an object of a threat of aggression in which nuclear weapons are used". They reaffirmed the right of individual and collective self-defence under Article 51 of the Charter, if an armed attack occurs, "until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security".⁴

1. A/PV 1672, p.41 ; 12.6.68

2. A/PV 1672, p.51; 12.6.68

3. A/PV 1672, p.52 ; 12.6.68

4. Resolution 255 (1968); 19.6.68. See also Cmd. 3683.

- 78 -

The vote was 10 in favour, none against. Algeria, Brazil, France, India, and Pakistan abstained. The Paraguayan delegate optimistically read into the declarations a great deal more than was there. The Brazilian, the Ethiopian, and the Indian all contrasted the announced intentions for the benefit of Non-Proliferation Treaty signatories with the more embracing juridical obligations the three States already had under the Charter towards all members of the United Nations without discrimination. The delegate of Pakistan suggested the vote be put off till after the Conference of Non-Nuclear Weapon States which was specifically going to discuss guarantees.

The Chinese comment on the "security assurances" when they had been proposed back in March was that this was "a malicious conspiracy [by U.S. imperialism and Soviet revisionism] for the control and enslavement of the non-nuclear nations and to turn these peoples into their nuclear slaves".¹ Within the existing military alliances there was some feeling that the neutrals were trying to get the benefits of alliance without the responsibilities.

1. Article by Commentator, Jenmin Jih Pao, 13.3.68

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XV

The real difficulties about security assurances and guarantees for the non-aligned have, no doubt, on occasion, been well ventilated in private - for instance between the Indian Government and the United States and the Soviet Union in early 1967 - but they have never really surfaced either at E.N.D.C. in Geneva in March 1968, at the General Assembly in New York in May and June, or at the Non-Nuclear Weapons States Conference in Geneva in September of that year.¹

An assumption that nuclear guarantees can work and are plausible has all along been the logical linch pin of the "naked" Non-Proliferation Treaty. Mr. Foster wrote in 1965 that "the incentives for others to acquire nuclear weapons can undoubtedly be reduced, if not controlled, by adequate security assurances or guarantees; a point of particular importance since the Chinese nuclear test".²

1. The Non-Nuclear-Weapons States Conference had the benefit of a background paper prepared by Professor Armando Urive, of the Chilean Foreign Office (A/Conf 35/Doc 1) in which the three nuclear powers' statements on Security Assurances and their relation to Article 51 of the Charter are analysed from a legal point of view.

2. W. Foster: *New Directions in Arms Control and Disarmament. Foreign Affairs*, July 1965, p.596

But even he limited this to "the near or medium term".

In the event it is difficult to suppose that any near-nuclear-weapon power, particularly after Czechoslovakia's experience of its nuclear guarantor's "protection", will be much reassured by the statements on "Security Assurances" made on June 17th by the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and the United States.

The difficulties about guarantees are worth rehearsing because they explain, not necessarily proliferation itself, but rather the disinclination near-nuclear governments have to themselves issuing guarantees on behalf of their countries never to acquire nuclear weapons.

So far all proliferation has taken place within alliances where far stronger guarantees appeared to obtain than can now be proposed either universally or to specifically vulnerable countries, such as India. In Europe there were ½ million American troops, plus their families; plus tactical nuclear weapons and other systems that could not be let fall into enemy hands. Between the Soviet Union and China there purported to be ideological unanimity (at least until the late 1950s). Respectively these might well have been thought adequately to guarantee the American and Russian guarantees, but, as became clear in the late fifties, they did not.

The Multilateral Force was an attempt to improve the credibility of the American guarantee, but in negotiation no satisfactory operation could be devised at the actual site of incredibility:

[LC]

the machinery for political control. In the case of non-alliance guarantees the problem can only be even less soluble. A taste for political control over military decisions is fundamental, at least in democracies, and there appears to be no possible political control over a guarantee.

In the specific case of Asian countries, both the Soviet Union and the United States have established postures of animosity towards China. Thus any Asian country, oertly guaranteed by the United States or the Soviet Union, or by both of them in a joint guarantee, would necessarily be inserted into the American or Russian deterrence system and consequently, at any moment of crisis between China and either of those guarantors, find itself identified with China's opponents, and therefore conceivably, an unwilling target for China's short range missiles. At any level lower than the nuclear, perhaps not then, a guarantee given by an antagonist of China's must probably reduce, rather than enhance, the security of the recipient vis-a-vis China.¹ It is sometimes suggested, as by Mr. Fisher² that American Anti-Ballistic Missile Defences might improve the quality of American guarantees to countries within range of Chinese nuclear weapons. To the extent that American guarantees (or Russian) cannot be disinfected of

1. This hostage-like situation is mentioned for Japan, but not examined, in Adelphi Paper 42 - November 1967; Michio Royama: The Asian Balance of Power, p.11.

2. See above, p.61

[L.C]

- 02 -

animosity towards China, this would not be so; and the "hostage
situation" which in Europe has motivated thoughts of proliferation
would do the same in Asia.¹ Some areas moreover are incapable
of housing nuclear guarantees. In the Middle East, for
instance, the super-powers can effectively do no more than
guarantee against each other.²

Rumours that Israel is acquiring nuclear weapons
abound, and recently the New York Times reported³ that Israel
was asking as a "price" for signing the Non-Proliferation
Treaty something like a formal guarantee of Israeli "territorial
security" from the United States. Israel could well suppose
that only her own nuclear weapons _or_ such a specific guarantee
could adequately safeguard her integrity. The military
requirement may come to seem peremptory. If so, this would
be the first development of nuclear weapons outside the
central nuclear arms race system, and arising directly from
a local military and political situation.

Sometimes the possibility of "guarantees and security
assurances" is advanced as a reason why the United States and
the Soviet Union should not begin to dismantle their nuclear
forces. Hedley Bull was writing three years ago that "it is

1. See two collections of views on "Nuclear Guarantees" published by Sapru House, New Delhi, in 1967; in bulk and in principle, these are hard to refute.

2. See H. Haykal, reprinted in Survival November 1967, for a
possible guaranteed party's view - Egypt's - of the effect
of United States-Soviet Union mutual deterrence.

3. 21.11.68.

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clear that if the United States and the Soviet Union were to
progress indefinitely down this road [i.e., beginning to
dismantle their nuclear forces] ... this ability to protect
states ... would then come to be called in question."¹

This is to ignore what almost all the near nuclear
except Israel have been saying over the years: that the threat
to their security, (which is what persuades them towards
acquiring nuclear weapons), derives from the nuclear weapons
already in existence. Particularly, it derives directly or
indirectly from the nuclear weapons in the hand of the nuclear
super-powers who alone so far have actually engaged in nuclear
threats (the British, French, and Chinese have not) and have
thereby hastened such proliferation as there has already been.
They see proliferation as one aspect of the central arms race:
hence their conviction that a genuine non-proliferation policy
must consist in a complex of measures of which "guarantees" can
only be a small part, and then preferably bolstered with some
kind of no-use declaration, or no-first-use declaration, or
declaration of no-use against powers not having nuclear weapons
on their territories. This has usually been part of any non-
proliferation package proposal, and it is frequently proposed
by the Soviet Union, and supported in the United Nations, as a

1. Hadley Bull in *Arms Control for the Late Sixties*, ed. Sougherty and Lehman; p.147

[L]

separate measure. The Chinese have indeed already made a no-first
use declaration and repeat it after each test. A plain no-first-
use declaration could probably not be accepted by the Nato
powers, at least as far as Europe is concerned, because the
mutual deterrence system whose interface is the Elbe is
essentially too asymmetrical for any single element in it to be
safely extracted or declared null until the whole structure
can be dismantled. This local argument does not necessarily
apply outside the European theatre, especially to the "no-use
against non-nuclear" version; and the United Kingdom and the
United States have implicitly made such declarations in
accepting the treaty of Tlatelolco, for the prohibition of
nuclear weapons in Latin America.

[L.C]

XVI

The world thus found itself in mid-summer 1968 with a Non-Proliferation Treaty, "commended" by the United Nations General Assembly and open for signature. But commendation is not signature, signatures not ratification, and less than 43 ratifications is not operation. The Soviet Union improved the shining hour by publishing a long memorandum of various more or less plausible disarmament and arms control proposals; this was after inexisting for many months, along with the United States, that it was "unrealistic" to consider more than one measure, i.e. the Non-Proliferation Treaty, at a time.¹

The Non-Proliferation Treaty remained vulnerable to criticism: the matter of guarantees, it was clear, had not been dealt with to the satisfaction of those near-nuclear countries which had a real security problem. For the super-powers two further and unexpected problems now draped themselves round the treaty they had so carefully been keeping "naked". One was that those non-nuclear powers for whom the weapons option had never really existed had now, largely through the super-powers' own enticements, established a lien on potential benefits from the peaceful application of nuclear energy. The other was that the near-nuclears, even taking no more time over negotiating safeguards with I.A.E.A. than they were allowed under Article III of the treaty, were in a position to stall if the super-powers did ¹. See e.g. Yuriv Zhukhov in Pravda, quoted by Tass, 25.5.68

[LC]

nothing about their own nuclear arms race as they were bound to under Article VI. Mme Myrdal had warned them in the Political Committee: "It cannot be stressed enough how important it is, for the rapid implementation ... of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, that concrete steps should be taken in the very near future"¹ - that is, by the super-powers, towards curbing their own, vertical, variety of proliferation.

Mr. Mulley reminded them again in Geneva when the E.N.D.C. reconvened in July 1968 that "many countries made their support for the treaty conditional on its being followed by meaningful negotiations ... We must expect that the rate of ratifications to the treaty may well be influenced by the rate of our work here."² It indeed appeared that at last in mid-August plans were well advanced for a start on the bilateral talks between the United States and the Soviet Union on strategic missile strengths, which had been hanging fire for so long, and on which the Non-Proliferation Treaty now depended. However on August 21st, the Russians invaded Czechoslovakia.

1. A/Cl/PV 154, p.11

2. ENDC/PV 381, p.24; 16.7.68

[L.C]

It is by no means now certain that the Non-Proliferation
Treaty will come into effect at all. To the Russians and East
Europeans, its principal purpose had appeared to be the binding
of West Germany. Yet after the Soviet Union's unexpected and
dishonourable invasion of Czechoslovakia, their continuing
distortion and rejection of Germany's "New Eastern Policy", and
anachronistic threats to invoke Articles 53 and 107 of the U.N.
Charter against her, West Germany's acceptance of the Treaty
is by no means automatic.

The Non-Proliferation Treaty would make political
sense for West Germany as part of wide-ranging progress towards
East-West détente, European integration, and a general system
of arms control. It was probably a mistake in 1966 for the
United States to make it appear to the German Government
that Russian-American agreement must necessarily be at the
expense of Western Europe and particularly of West Germany;
and later for the United States and the United Kingdom
governments to fail to integrate their non-proliferation
proposals into their respective overall European security
policies. Whether the Soviet Union equally misjudged depends
on one's interpretation of the invasion of Czechoslovakia:
whether it was the instinctive and uncalculated folly of ill-
informed and unimaginative men, or a rational and characteristic
decision to risk the whole cause of détente and with it,
specifically, the Non-Proliferation Treaty, for the sake of some
benefit as yet undisclosed.

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But with Nato from now on never more than a year away
from possible - if quite unlikely - dissolution; with the
Non-Proliferation Treaty reserving certain aspects of
commercially interesting technology for United States and Soviet
Union monopoly; with no evident or immediate political return
in terms that the German electorate could be expected to value;
with that to which the West German signature would be a fair
contribution - a new Security arrangement in Europe -
destroyed by Russian action; there can be no certainty that the
present coalition government in Bonn will decide even to sign
when it next considers the matter in March. Ratification is
anyway out of the question for Euratom countries until
negotiations with I.A.E.A. are complete; and on this presumably
the future of Euratom, at present in some doubt, will have some
bearing.

And if West Germany doesn't sign, will the Soviet
Union ratify? It is, apparently, doubtful, although Russian
propaganda attacks the U.S. for its failure to ratify.¹
Yet the treaty can only come into effect when the three
depository powers - the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and
the United States - together with another forty powers have
ratified it. The time scale is leisurely: within 180 days
of the treaty entering into force (and at present it is still

1. e.g. Moscow Home Service; 3.12.68

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2 depository powers and 3 others away from doing so)
signatories are supposed to start negotiations on safeguards
with I.A.E.A. These negotiations may take another eighteen
months to complete. Moreover the I.A.E.A. may well find itself
short of qualified staff, both on the negotiating and on the
inspection side.

Euratom powers will not ratify the Treaty before
negotiations with I.A.E.A. are complete, and several other
near-nuclears seem likely to take up this attitude: Australia,
South Africa, Switzerland, Japan. Whether all or some of them
will take up a joint negotiating position remains to be seen.
Several governments will only ratify "among the last 10 or 15%".

Yet for each near-nuclear weapon power that hesitates
or procrastinates, there is a consequent complex of other
hesitations and procrastinations. Will Sweden ratify before
West Germany? What Africans will ratify before South Africa?
India repeats that she will not sign; how then could Pakistan?
Brazil will not; what ratifications will there be in Latin
America?

And indeed how could governments, whose countries'
nuclear technology is advanced and valuable, agree unseen to
safeguards which the nuclear weapons powers will not be bound
to submit _their_ technology to? The dividing line between
what activities and applications are to be deemed military,
(or capable of becoming military) and what are not, will have
to be drawn in accordance with the experience and advice of

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the nuclear weapons states ...

And will not the ambiguities and deficiencies in the text of the treaty begin to show? Article I does not forbid nuclear weapon states from "assisting, encouraging or inducing" parties other than non-nuclear weapon states "to manufacture or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons and explosives devices". May they do so to firms or individuals or the Vietcong or Biafra or the Mafia? The American firm, El Paso Natural Gas Co., is reported to be proposing to finance the next Atomic Energy Commission Gasbuggy-type experiment more or less in its entirety,¹ - it invested substantially in Gasbuggy I - and its activities both as a consultant and service company will be paralleled in the international field by the newly-formed Nobel Paso Geonuclear in which it has a 50% interest.² The Sunday Times³ reports that the United States is raising difficulties over the proposed British-German-Dutch cooperation in the gas centrifuge enrichment process: Mr. Foster said in November that American enrichment facilities "should be capable of handling all foreseeable demands ... through the late 1970s"⁴ and it is known that discussions are in progress over the

1. Le Monde; 13.12.68; New Scientist: 31.10.68

2. Nobel Prize and Academies Reunies de Belgique hold the other 50%

3. Sunday Times; 22.12.68

4. UN First Committee 19.11.68, p.4 USIS text

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possible sale to private industry of the three enrichment
plants the American Atomic Energy Commission had up to now
owned and run.¹ Can there be any confidence that decisions
and limits and boundaries under Articles I, III, IV and V of the
Non-Proliferation Treaty will be made and established and
interpreted in the interests of arms control rather than on
grounds of the national commercial advantage of the super-powers?
And if national commercial advantage does become a criterion
for them, others will follow suit: the risk¹ showed itself
incipiently at the Non-Nuclear Weapons States Conference in
some decidedly anti-I.A.E.A., anti-safeguards proposals.²

Article II, as the U.A.R. delegate pointed out in
October 1967³, is not symmetrical: a non-nuclear weapon
signatory is not forbidden from giving assistance towards the
acquisition of nuclear weapons or explosive devices to any non-
signatory state, or firm, or individual - only from its
acquiring them itself. Mr. Foster's assurance⁴ that no
government would have any reason for helping others except

1. New Scientist 22.8.68, p.380

2. See also A. Keller, H. Bolliger and P. Kalff: On the Economic Implications of the Proposed Non-Proliferation Treaty. Revue de Droit International No. 1 1968; (Geneva) "The most unfavourable assumptions ... serve as a working basis", and the onslaught is no less damaging for having been made with a watch-maker's toothcomb.

3. See p 64

4. ENDC/PV 371 28.2.68

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to acquire nuclear weapons for itself in violation of the treaty seemed a little unwordly. If Israel decides to go nuclear, would she not seek to hire help?

Again, throughout Article III, when the word "peaceful" occurs, it seems to be a limiting qualification: as if a government could escape the safeguards machinery by describing the purposes for which it requires fissile material as military but non-explosive, in which case no safeguards or inspection is proposed. The treaty reads: "Each State Party to the Treaty undertakes not to provide: (a) source or special fissionable material, or (b) equipment or material especially designed or prepared for the processing, use or production of special fissionable material, to any non-nuclear-weapon State for peaceful purposes, unless the source or special fissionable material shall be subject to the safeguards required by this article." and is not elsewhere modified. The obscurity is daunting and the draft Article III proposed by Sweden to E.N.D.C. in August 1967² appears in retrospect a tidier job altogether.

There is moreover no indication of what is to happen if a "peaceful" nuclear explosive technology becomes

1. Article III, para 2.

2. ENDC /195, 30.8.67

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distinguishable from the definitely military. Japanese
scientists are said to foresee the achievement by means of
nuclear explosive technology of transuranian elements ...
And there is work going on at, for instance, Trieste and
Frascati which seems to promise useful little fusion bursts.¹
If this kind of thing is to be banned as the use of "nuclear
explosive devices" under Article II - and presumably it should
be - the propriety of reserving _all_ explosion technology to
the nuclear weapon powers becomes questionable.

But even greater complications seem likely to arise
over Articles IV and V and the organisation of "benefits" from
nuclear technology including explosives to developing areas of
the world which these articles anticipate. The Non-Nuclear
Weapons States Conference considered this at some length.

1. New Scientist; 21.11.68

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XVII

The Conference of Non-Nuclear Weapon States derived
from a rather half-heartedly supported General Assembly
Resolution¹, which Pakistan had sponsored and which India had
been alone in voting against. It met in Geneva from
August 29th to September 28th 1968. Ninety six countries
were represented, including four nuclear-weapons-powers - France,
the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and the United States -
whose delegates had no vote, and in fact did not speak; they
were active in the corridors. The conference suffered from
being neither an effective microcosm (as E.N.D.C. has become)
nor a genuine lobby. It divided itself up into a number of
more or less geographical, more or less like-minded U.N.-type
groupes: Nato (plus Australia, New Zealand and sometimes Japan),
Soviet bloc
the Warsaw Pact, the Latin Americans and the Afro-Asians
(Japan sometimes with them). Its long term educational
effect is likely to be substantial.

The conference discussed two main topics: the security
of the non-nuclear weapons Powers, including the prevention of
further proliferation; and the business of cooperation in the
field of peaceful uses of nuclear energy. It adopted a
Declaration² and forwarded a number of recommendations to the

1. No. 2153 B (XXI); 17.11.66

2. A/7277, pp 17 et seq.

United Nations General Assembly and the Security/Disarmament once contain no surplices: the Declaration "notes" the Non-Proliferation Treaty and "considers It should be followed up by measures of disarmament, particularly of nuclear disarmament"²¹, i.e. the "package" view of security and non-proliferation prevailed. The recommendations included: an extension of nuclear free zones; the Disarmament Commission to reconvene to negotiate a number of measures including a comprehensive test ban (which was to come up again under peaceful uses); the United States and the Soviet Union to start their discussions to limit their offensive and defensive missile systems because of "the imminent danger of a renewal of the strategic nuclear arms race and its escalation to new and uncontrollable levels."²² A proposal for a special conference to draw up a "multilateral instrument" on the matter of security assurances failed by one vote to get the necessary two thirds majority in the plenary meeting of the Conference and so lapsed. This resolution had been sponsored by the Latin American Group, who on several other topics, particularly the availability of nuclear explosives for peaceful purposes, displayed their long-standing disinclination to being dependent on their powerful Northern Ally. Nato and Warsaw

1. "Declaration of the Non-Nuclear Weapon States", para 4

2. Recommendation D of the Non-Nuclear Weapons States

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bloc powers voted against, and one may assume a certain amount of arm twisting in the corridors. The outcome, however, was not a vote of confidence for the June 17th system of security assurances.

The "peaceful uses" recommendations illustrated another way in which the Conference came to divide itself up over and above the usual United Nation type alignments. This was the threefold distinction between the *nuclear-weapons-powers*, the *non-weapons nuclear powers*, and the *non-nuclear powers* for whom there is not a weapons option at all.¹ The super-powers, in omitting to make these distinctions during the Non-Proliferation Treaty negotiations, had allowed themselves to use the prospect of untold nuclear goodies as an inducement to the third, (non-nuclear, non-weapons) group to support the Treaty. ("The potential benefits from the carrying out of such explosions will be available on extremely advantageous and favourable terms to the parties to the Treaty."² "We believe that usable, though not optimum, nuclear explosive designs for certain applications will be available in the near future ... to domestic users and to non-nuclear parties to the Treaty",³ and so on.)

1. of Mme Myrdal's distinctions above, p 41

2. Mr. Roshchin; ENDC/PV/366. 16.2.68, p.8

3. Mr. Foster; ENDC/PV/384, pp 6 & 7

A Conference paper which claimed explicitly to be "based on American sources" concluded: "The development of nuclear explosives ... works for mankind as an answer to the increasing demand for energy, water, minerals, transportation links and food supply".¹ The "peaceful uses" recommendations of the conference displayed the uncritical, even greedy, enthusiasm with which the non-nuclears were responding to this implied promise of economic miracle. They pointed out that they would require financial Resistance as well as technical, that special funds should be set up for this purpose, and that representation on I.A.E.A. should be reconstituted, wider and poorer.²

The non-weapons nuclear powers came to form an equally distinguishable, though by no means always cohering group; it included such highly aligned countries as Australia, West Germany, Italy, Japan and Spain, as well as neutrals like Sweden and Switzerland and India.

Those, with whom arguably it would have been more realistic for the nuclear weapons powers to have negotiated the Non-Proliferation Treaty, had two major concerns: the reduction to a minimum of the monopolistic advantages the nuclear weapons

1. Theo Ginsburg, (of the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale, Zurich), "The Question of peaceful explosions for the benefit of non-nuclear weapon states". A/Conf. 35/Doc.2, p.20

2. Recommendations G,I, J, K and M

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powers might derive from the prohibitions of the Non-Proliferation
Treaty; and - most of them - the need to relate the provision
of peaceful nuclear explosions with a comprehensive test ban.
Several delegates at the Conference had no doubt that some other
delegates with commercial interests both national and
international behind them were being decidedly active on behalf
of what may euphemistically be called free trade. Mme Myrdal
had mentioned in E.N.D.C. the formation of an international
company, with American, French, German and Belgian capital, to
sell services in connexion with the use of nuclear explosives¹:
"the profit motive is evidently not excluded ... We might even
fear that vested interests, in the world of international
commerce, could come to act as a pressure against an underground
⁷
test ban"². She might in this context have mentioned the
increased porosity of language in *AA* I of the actual treaty, in
comparison with the equivalent articles in the 1965 American
and Russian drafts. Parts of some Resolutions, which were
subsequently composed out of existence, were indeed concerned
to reduce the scope of I.A.E.A. safeguards and generally to
open up the market.

Hence conference recommendation No. 12 (sponsored by
Sweden and Nigeria, and, with some abstentions, unopposed),
which specifically endorsed the views of the non-aligned
1. ENDC/PV 373, p.7; 5.3.68; and see above, p.89
2. ENDC/PV 373, p.106; 5.3.68