But the Agency's research program had to do more than support current negotiations; it had to be designed to stimulate fresh ideas and identify the factors that stand in the way of agreement. This called for an intellectual reservoir of people expert in the problems of arms control and disarmament. The development of a nucleus of technical competence is one of ACDA's most rewarding accomplishments to date. Thus, during the past two years the Agency has built up its own staff and contracted for 35 studies by research organizations and individuals outside the government, working in many localities throughout the United States.

The Agency spent its first year providing support for the negotiations in Geneva, pulling together the skeins of the Government's dispersed research, laying out its own research program. During the second year new projects began to take shape, key problems were identified, contracts let, an increasing number of people set to thinking and working. The results have been encouraging. By the end of 1963, problems of coordination with other agencies working on the periphery of the problem were being solved; the Agency's own expanding research effort-which absorbed a large part of the 6.5 million dollar budget-was beginning to have shape, logic and direction.

How Research Is Planned

The Arms Control and Disarmament Act aimed, among other things, at coordinating the Government's total effort in the field, so as to eliminate overlap, duplication, and gaps in research. Because disarmament questions cut across military, political, legal, scientific, technical, and economic disciplines, the Agency brought its senior experts in all these fields together in a research council to assure all relevant points of view went into planning its program.

The council is composed of principal bureau and office heads of the Agency. All Agency research in arms control and disarmament comes under their scrutiny. Other agencies, such as the Department of Defense, the Atomic Energy Commission, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) report on their programs in the field to ACDA twice a year. This provides a continuing inventory of current research projects.

On the basis of these reports, the Agency prepares an evaluation of Government research in the field, which is in turn submitted to the Bureau of the Budget. This semiannual review focuses attention regularly on the overall Government effort, flags research that has not been done, and points to that which needs doing.

Although much research is done within ACDA itself and within other agencies, a large share of the detailed work is done outside the Government, through contracts or grants. Contracts are awarded to private companies, universities, nonprofit research organizations, and individuals. Many of the contractors are those also employed by the Department of Defense, NASA, and other agencies. Sometimes ACDA simply supplements an existing contract of another agency. For example, the Agency made arrangements with the Defense Department to use the computation facility of the Weapons Systems Evaluation Group in the Pentagon. This arrangement allowed ACDA to benefit from the extensive Department of Defense investment in a facility designed to analyze different military force postures. There are also cases where a project is of mutual interest and where joint sponsorship is desirable; it is often a matter of going at the same problem from the different angle of controlling, rather than developing, certain weapons. In connection with the difficult problem posed by chemical and biological weapons and materials, for example, ACDA transferred funds to the Department of the Army to enable it to include the arms control aspect in a study already in progress.

As a practical matter, an Agency the size of ACDA cannot carry out all, or even most, of its detailed research with its own personnel. The problems require a variety of expertise that cannot be assembled in one place. Nor would this be desirable, even if it were possible. ACDA believes in the importance of constantly widening the circle of people who think about, and work on the problems of arms control. This tends to produce stimulation from outside the Government, and generates new ideas.

Present experience indicates that certain types of questions often are best answered by outside research groups. Typical of these are such questions as: "How easily can a missile test facility be constructed in evasion of an agreement?" Studies indirectly related to the current situation-for example, on the arms control implications of weapons which might be technologically feasible five years from now-also can be carried out by contractors.

On the other hand, there are studies which must be done within the Agency itself. Periodically, questions arise at the negotiating table for which answers are needed quickly. When this happens, the length of time required to complete an outside study makes it necessary to do the job with ACDA personnel. In addition, back-up papers to U.S. positions must be prepared by Agency officers sensitive to and informed about the development of current policy. A substantial part of ACDA's in-house research effort is devoted to studies-often highly classified-of this nature.

To a certain extent the problem in research planning is one of being in position to respond to current political developments. But to develop the possibilities of arms control, it is necessary in addition to explore all the implications with respect to military capabilities, the economy, and our collective defense alliances. Research planning must aim at future needs, explore new ideas, and fill the gaps in our knowledge which initial research has begun to reveal.

How Research Is Used

ACDA's research program for calendar year 1963 has served as the principal foundation for current and future policy development. The program can best be understood in relation to some of the problems which have arisen during the past year and which promise to persist in the future.

When detailed information is available in advance of specific negotiating needs, it makes sophisticated responses to changing political situations possible. Negotiations on the test ban and the MoscowWashington communications link went quickly and smoothly because as soon as the political will to negotiate appeared, the United States was prepared to take immediate advantage of it.

Studies within the Department of Defense and ACDA produced a draft for a limited test ban treaty in August 1962. The measure, tabled in Geneva at that time, was available for inspection by the Soviets for ten months before Chairman Khrushchev, on July 2, 1963, indicated Soviet interest in negotiating a partial ban. The treaty was signed 34 days later.

The three original signatories to the treaty have pledged to continue their attempts to extend the ban to tests underground-the one environment not covered by the present treaty. To that end, the United States is continuing its research into methods of policing a comprehensive ban covering all nuclear explosions.

Actually, by 1963 the form of the U.S. proposals for a comprehensive ban had changed markedly, partly as a result of technical progress in the detection and identification of nuclear explosions. Intensive research on detection has been carried out by Project Vela, which was initiated by the Department of Defense in 1959. In 1963 an expensive and complicated international system for policing a test ban was displaced in the new U.S. proposals by a much simpler national detection system. And although on-site inspection of certain underground disturbances is still required to give assurances that such events are not man-made, the new plan did provide for reduced inspection requirements. This was made possible in part by improved

long-range detection techniques. Thus, technical research served the political need to propose as few entries as possible into Russian territory without increasing the risk to U.S. security. Vela research into improved methods for detecting and identifying underground tests is continuing.

Over the years, a series of relatively uncomplicated "first-step" measures designed to reduce the risk of war by accident, failure of communications or miscalculation has been talked about by both sides. The U.S. included some of its "risk of war" measures in its suggested outline for a disarmament treaty in April 1962. They proposed consideration of advance notification of military movements and maneuvers, a system of observation posts to report on concentrations of military forces, an exchange of military missions to improve communications and understanding and a direct communications link between the Governments of the United States and the Soviet Unionthe so-called "hot line." The United States argued that measures such as these need not wait for the negotiation of a disarmament treaty, but could be implemented at once. When the Cuban crisis underlined the urgent need for improved communications, the work that had gone into these U.S. proposals began to pay off.

In December of 1962, the proposals were developed by ACDA in greater detail and presented to the conference as a separate item. When, in April, the Russians indicated a willingness to negotiate a direct communications link between Moscow and Washington, the U.S. was ready; two months later with technical and political problems speedily resolved as a result of previous internal research—an agreement was signed in Geneva. After years of stalemate, the first modest move had been made.

The ideas and proposals developed in ACDA are instruments devised to show what may be done to serve a political purpose and the national security, and how to do it. And those which are useful, but simple in concept and easy to implement, may often stimulate the will to negotiate.

Shortly after the signing of the test ban treaty, Premier Khrushchev listed several measures-all derived from earlier proposalswhich he suggested might form the basis for further agreements.

One of these concerned a measure calling for the establishment of a system of observation posts to check on major military movements and thus ease the fear of surprise attack. In order to bring all technical facets of such an arrangement up to date, ACDA turned to one of its contractors, then working on a study of how to verify agreements on ground forces and armaments. The contractor was asked to supply, on a priority basis, a study of the functions of observa

tion posts. A few weeks after ACDA's request, preliminary results were in and have been of considerable value in helping further define the U.S. position.

In addition to observation posts, Premier Khrushchev also revived the proposal for freezing or reducing military budgets. This focused attention once again on an idea which has foundered in the past on the difficulties in knowing how and where Soviet military expenditures are accounted for in their national budget.

The state of knowledge about the Soviet fiscal system has not, up to this time, been sufficient to permit serious negotiations aimed at agreements to lower levels of military spending, or even to allow a judgment about whether national military budgets are susceptible to common measurement. However, in an attempt to develop the factual background and find out whether and how agreements might be verified, ACDA initiated a special study of the Soviet fiscal system by the Department of Commerce. Fiscal information in relation to arms control agreements may be a valuable supplementary verification tool, and the Agency's continuing study will explore expenditures at all levels-national, regional, and local. An attempt will be made to find ways of identifying spending recorded in defense budgets and that channeled elsewhere, through civil departments and services. The question of how significant expenditures can be hidden is also being explored.

In relation to less complex measures, preparation is no less intensive. Two months after the signing of the test ban treaty and four months after the signing of the communications link agreement, another tentative step was taken towards the limitation of nuclear weapons. The United States and the Soviet Union expressed their intention to refrain from stationing nuclear weapons in outer space. This formed the basis of a resolution by the 18th General Assembly on October 17, 1963. The object was to limit the probabilities of competition to develop space-based delivery systems for weapons of mass destruction for which neither side had any use.

In anticipation that such a step might some day be taken, ACDA had entered into a contract for an analysis of the technical aspects of weapons in orbit. Verification questions were examined in detail. The study became available before the United States was confronted with a decision as to what arrangements it should enter into in relation to bombs in orbit. Again, ACDA was able to draw on its rapidly developing contract resources for special technical assistance.

These results were influential in reinforcing the U.S. estimate that our space-tracking systems were able to detect launchings and devices in orbit.