perts from ACDA's list of consultants; these groups have been particularly useful in the study of long-range disarmament questions. Where measures of major importance are concerned, the Director usually brings the proposal before the Agency's General Advisory Committee, to which distinguished members of the business, labor, academic, and scientific communities are appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate. Under the Chairmanship of John J. McCloy, the General Advisory Committee met three times during 1963. In April it had before it, among other things, the Russian offer to negotiate the U.S. proposal for a direct communications link, and the question of the latest U.S. proposals for a comprehensive test ban; in July, the proposals for a partial test ban; and in October the question of U.S. participation in a U.N. resolution calling on all nations to refrain from stationing weapons of mass destruction in outer space. A particularly long and intense effort preceded the tabling of the test ban proposals. In fact, the path from working group proposal to agreed U.S. position was traveled twice after ACDA was formedonce in 1962 and again in 1963. It led through three Federal agencies, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, ACDA's General Advisory Committee, the Committee of Principals, four congressional committees, and the National Security Council to the President of the United States. In April 1962, ACDA began a review of the position the United States had taken on a nuclear test ban treaty. Extensive interagency consultation at the staff level preceded a series of meetings in which members of the Committee of Principals considered the problem with both President Kennedy and Vice President Johnson. Consideration was given to all relevant aspects of national security, both as it might be affected on the one hand by a comprehensive test ban or a ban limited to outer space, the atmosphere and under water, and as it might be affected on the other hand if nuclear weapon testing were continued. Various aspects of the problem were examined, such as the effect on the U.S.-U.S.S.R. military balance, with and without a test ban; the possibility and extent of the diffusion of nuclear weapons, both with and without a nuclear testing agreement; an analysis of the problems of maintaining readiness to test and an analysis of the effects of possible clandestine underground testing in violation of an agreement. As a result of these considerations, it was concluded that either a comprehensive or a partial test ban treaty continued to be in the national interest. The decision was made that if the Soviet Union continued to indicate its unwillingness to accept a realistic number of on-site inspections for underground tests, the United States would be prepared to accept a treaty banning tests in the atmosphere, outer space and under water-the environments in which a ban could be effectively verified without inspections on Soviet soil. Drafts were submitted to the 18-Nation Conference in August 1962. It was one of these the draft for a partial test ban treaty-that served as a basis for the agreement reached at Moscow in July 1963. Early in 1963, however, negotiations were still focused on a comprehensive agreement. At Geneva, the Soviets were insisting that the number of on-site inspections be settled before negotiations on the other provisions of a treaty go forward, and further that the number be no more than the three offered by Premier Khrushchev the previous December. The talks were on dead center, in spite of the fact that the United States had developed new proposals for policing a test ban, which it had presented privately to the Soviets in January and publicly to the Geneva Conference in April. However, until early July, when Premier Khrushchev indicated in a Berlin speech an interest in a partial ban, the United States kept to a flexible stand and offered to negotiate a treaty with a maximum number of on-site inspections as low as seven, provided these seven were adequately protected by reasonable inspection procedures. The decision to maintain this posture was the result of extensive interagency coordination and consultation. In early 1963 the Committee of Principals met twice to consider the problems raised by the deadlocked test ban situation in Geneva and to pass on guidelines developed for the negotiations. During this period the communications link was being negotiated in Geneva. An exchange of correspondence was taking place between President Kennedy and Premier Khrushchev; and the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency was deeply involved in consultation, exposition, and justification of its various proposals with three separate committees of the Congress. In February, and again on three occasions in March, Agency officials testified on the test ban and U.S. verification capabilities before the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy. The Committee was particularly interested in making sure the U.S. proposals were firmly supported by technical developments for detecting and identifying nuclear weapon tests. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee examined the question in March and April, and in May ACDA officials testified before the Preparedness Investigating Subcommittee of the Senate Armed Services Committee which had been holding hearings on the military implications of a comprehensive test ban treaty. In June 1963 the test ban began its second journey through the policymaking process. On June 10, President Kennedy announced that talks would be held in Moscow and that the United States would re The signing of the Limited Test Ban Treaty in Moscow on August 5, 1963, frain from testing in the atmosphere so long as other nations did so. As a result of this, and of the possibility that the Soviets might reverse an earlier stand and seek agreement on a partial ban, the Committee of Principals met on June 14. The following day, Gen. Maxwell Taylor, a member of the Committee asked the Joint Chiefs of Staff to review a possible limited test ban treaty. On July 2, Premier Khrushchev expressed the readiness of the U.S.S.R. "to conclude an agreement" for such a ban. As the time neared for the opening of the Moscow talks, scheduled for July 15, the tempo of activity was stepped up. The Arms Control and Disarmament Agency began preparations for the negotiations. Background papers on the underlying facts and issues were supplied. During this period frequent consultations were held at the Agency's top level with Under Secretary of State Averell Harriman, who had been named by President Kennedy to head the U.S. delegation to Moscow. ACDA was responsible for drafting instructions to the delegation which provided the United States with its negotiating position. These instructions and their supporting background material were coordinated by ACDA with the State Department, the White House, and all interested agencies. ACDA's Deputy Director accompanied Mr. Harriman to Moscow as his deputy; the Assistant Director for Science and Technology and other Agency experts were contributed to help staff the U.S. delegation. During the 10 days of negotiation in Moscow, ACDA continued to perform its coordinating function in backstopping the delegation. The treaty was initialed in Moscow on July 25 by the negotiators of the three nuclear powers, Mr. Averell Harriman for the United States, Lord Hailsham for the United Kingdom, and Andrei Gromyko for the Soviet Union. On August 5 the treaty was formally signed for the United States by the Secretary of State, Dean Rusk, and for the Soviet Union and the United Kingdom by their respective Foreign Ministers, Andrei Gromyko and Lord Home.1 On September 24, after extensive hearings and almost three weeks of floor debate, the Senate consented to ratification of the treaty by a vote of 80 to 19. It was ratified by President Kennedy on October 7, 1963, and entered into force on October 10 when the three original signatories deposited their respective instruments of ratification in each of the three capitals, Washington, Moscow, and London. It is doubtful that any other international agreement to which the United States has been a party was subject to more thorough analysis, study and debate, or came under more careful scrutiny by as many officials in our government. The course followed in the formulation of U.S. policy on the limited test ban treaty and the other arms control accomplishments of 1963 has done much to delineate the role to be played by the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency in relation to these vital matters in the future. 1 See Appendix VIII for a complete list of those present at this occasion. The Research Program This organization must have the capacity to provide the essential scientific, economic, political, military, psychological, and technological information upon which realistic arms control and disarmament policy must be based.1 Almost two and a half years ago, ACDA started functioning with a dual assignment: to build a cohesive research program in arms control and disarmament and at the same time to prepare for imminent negotiations at the Eighteen-Nation Disarmament Conference in Geneva. While there were some disadvantages to making this running start, there were also advantages. The requirements of the international negotiation revealed something of the nature and size of the difficulties, the orders of priority for study, and a long list of questions to be answered if the United States was to move forward realistically and without jeopardizing its security. Some of the unanswered questions confronting the fledgling Agency were formidable: Can nuclear testing be stopped? What measures can be taken to reduce the risk of accidental war? What will be the economic effects of slowing down the arms race? Can the extension of the nuclear arms race to outer space be prevented? How will disarmament measures affect existing defense arrangements? What kind of verification and inspection schemes can be devised that will not do unacceptable violence to national sovereignty? How can further proliferation of nuclear weapons be prevented? What kind of international peacekeeping arrangements can be devised? Are there steps which can be taken to ease tensions and create an atmosphere in which agreements might be possible? At the time the Agency was established, responsibility for one or another aspect of the problem was lodged in several different Federal agencies. Research efforts were scattered and uncoordinated. Detailed research and analysis was needed to provide sound technical support for the negotiations at Geneva, in the United Nations, and in connection with day-to-day foreign policy where it touched on arms control and disarmament questions. 1 1 Public Law 87-297. 721-084 0-64 -3 9 |