Fateful Decision

Thirteen years and 113 announced nuclear and thermonuclear blasts after the first fateful mushroom cloud at Alamogordo, N. Mex., the U.S. committed itself to a grave decision. President Dwight Eisenhower, appearing before TV and newsreel cameras in Washington, announced that the U.S. was ready to suspend its nuclear-weapons tests for one year effective Oct. 31. The President attached two major conditions. He required that 1) the U.S.S.R. agree to begin political talks by Oct. 31, aimed at setting up a world network of posts equipped to detect nuclear explosions, presumably in Red China as well as the U.S.S.R., and 2) the U.S.S.R. refrain from resuming its own nuclear-weapons tests, which it unilaterally suspended last March.

The President continued with terms for the more distant future. The U.S., he said, was also ready to suspend tests on a year-to-year basis after Oct. 31, 1959, provided that 1) the world detection network is installed and working satisfactorily, and 2) progress is being made in U.S.-U.S.S.R. negotiations on disarmament, such as stoppage of nuclear-weapons production. Said Ike: "As the U.S. has frequently made clear, the suspension of testing is not in itself a measure of disarmament. An agreement in this respect is significant if it leads to other and more substantial agreements. It is in this hope that the U.S. makes this proposal."

The Earnest Discussion. The fateful U.S. decision was made by Dwight Eisenhower alone. But behind his personal decision lay weeks of earnest discussion between top-level Administration officials, each one expressing his fears, or his hopes, in the light of his particular governmental function. The calendar of one of the U.S.'s most soul-wrenching secret debates:

WINTER 1958. President Eisenhower and Presidential Science Adviser James Killian set up a panel of scientists to determine whether a worldwide net of seismographic, acoustic and other equipment could detect a violation of any U.S.-U.S.S.R. agreement to suspend tests. Named to head the panel: Cornell University's Dr. Hans Bethe, an acknowledged expert in the detection field.

APRIL. The Bethe Panel submitted its report to Killian, who turned it over to the President. The panel's chief finding: an effective detection network could indeed be set up. The report rocked the Pentagon, challenged the judgment of AEC Chairman Lewis Strauss that rogue-proof detection was not possible. But on the diplomatic side, it convinced Secretary of State John Foster Dulles that a stop-the-tests agreement was technically feasible, therefore worth exploring for its effect on world opinion.

MAY THROUGH JULY. President Eisenhower invited the Kremlin to send a delegation of U.S.S.R. scientists to sit down with U.S. and British scientists in Geneva for a joint study on test detection. The Kremlin accepted, then tried to back out. Finally, when the U.S. said its scientists would show up at Geneva with or without the Soviet representatives, the U.S.S.R. okayed the talks, sent Communist scientists to the conference room.

AUGUST. The U.S.-U.S.S.R. scientists reached agreement that test detection was feasible (TIME, Aug. 25), that 160 to 170 posts around the world, manned by about 30 men each, with right to travel to sites of suspected nuclear blasts, could do the job. For the first time since World War II, a Soviet delegation had agreed to the principle of international inspection. Carried further, that principle might conceivably lead to a realistic agreement in the general area of disarmament. The Geneva agreement was the turning point.

The Rearguard Action. Early last week, the President, who had intently followed the reports from Geneva, called a meeting of senior Administration officials, invited arguments on the question of suspending U.S. nuclear tests. Under Secretary of State Christian A. Herter, sitting in for Dulles, came out for a test suspension without delay. Defense Mobilizer Gordon Gray had no objection.

Then Deputy Defense Secretary Donald A. Quarles and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Nathan Twining weighed in strongly against suspension. Chief point: the U.S. is ahead in nuclear weapons and should not surrender its advantage. AEC Chairman John McCone, new at his job, argued passionately and persuasively. He urged that even in the event of an agreement to suspend tests, the U.S. 1) should not stop nuclear explosions for peaceful purposes, e.g., bottoming out harbors, dislodging oil from sand, testing the effects of high-altitude blasts on radio communications; and 2) should continue testing "miniature" nuclear weapons needed for limited-war defenses.

Major Concession. Two days later, Secretary of State Dulles flew back from the United Nations meetings in New York, spent 90 minutes with the President, argued for an immediate, unqualified stop-the-tests announcement. Dulles' concern: that qualifications and delay would partly nullify the hoped-for effect of the announcement on world opinion. When Dulles drove in his Cadillac to Washington's National Airport, again to fly to New York, John McCone rode with him, arguing all the way. Next day McCone briefed key members of Congress' Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, won support on his position even from New Mexico's Democratic Senator Clinton Anderson, who had opposed former AEC Chairman Lewis Strauss at every step of the way (TIME, May 19). Finally, from the President. McCone won a major concession: the U.S. would not promise to suspend nuclear tests for peaceful purposes.

At the White House meeting, President Eisenhower had bluntly stated his position. "This." he told his Administration colleagues, "is a political decision that must be taken for the entire U.S. It is, gentlemen, a decision which I must make." That decision, in the result, expressed the deepest U.S. hopes for eventual disarmament--and overrode most of the fears of those who thought it would work to the nation's long-term military disadvantage.

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