Down to Business

History gave the diplomats and experts little hope as they took their seats last week in Room VII of Geneva's gleaming white Palais des Nations to resume the weary search for an end to the world arms race.

As Manhattan Lawyer Fredrick Eaton, chief U.S. delegate, put it. creation of new weapons has always outstripped efforts to disarm ever since the Chinese pirates on the Yangtze held the first dis armament conference in 9 B.C. Now, in the Atomic Age, the haggling has droned on through 14 years to no avail. In the very next room at the Palais, the three-nation nuclear-test-ban conference (U.S., Russia, Britain) had made little progress in more than 16 months of debate.

But oddly enough, there was a feeling this time that some kind of partial agreement might be possible out of the com mon concern over nuclear destruction, and the awesome and imminent new methods of its delivery from the heights of outer space. "Not one, but a thousand swords of Damocles dangle over us," in toned France's Jules Moch gravely as the disarmament talks began.

The Plans. On paper, East and West were far apart, and some delegates, expecting a long siege, began looking for Swiss schools for their children and taking leases on Geneva homes. The British fore-handedly made their delegation a "mission." entitling their dependents to living allowances. But even to hard-bitten skep tics, the beginning was promising. For once, there was no haggling over procedure, table shapes, or agenda. On the very first day, the delegates got down to substance. On the table before the ten-nation commission (five Communist nations v. the U.S., Britain, Canada, France, Italy) were two conflicting plans. One was the deceptively simple four-year scheme that Nikita Khrushchev laid before his startled U.N. audience in New York last September. Its terms:

P:Total abolition of conventional troops within three years, with an immediate reduction of U.S., Russian and Red Chinese military manpower to 1,700,000 in the first twelve to 18 months.

P:Elimination of foreign military bases.

P:Destruction of nuclear weapons and rockets in the fourth year and a ban on their production.

The West's plan was more cautious, more complicated, and more practical, for built into its every step was the important element scarcely mentioned in the Soviet proposal: control, inspection and enforcement to ensure honest compliance by all ("verification" is the new jargon word for it). The West proposed a program with no timetable and three stages:

P:First, drafting of agreements on every facet of disarmament, including space weapons, creation of an International Disarmament Organization to have increasing powers of supervision, and a reduction of U.S. and Soviet troop strength to 2,500,000 each.

P:Later, a further reduction of conventional manpower to 2,100,000, a ban on use of nuclear weapons in space vehicles, a halt to manufacture of fissionable material for weapons and a reduction of nuclear stockpiles--all to be carefully checked and supervised.

P:Finally, when and if all the rest has been achieved, complete abolition of nuclear weapons and military missiles, reduction of conventional troop forces to the level of local security forces, and establishment of an international armed police to crack down on treaty violators with force if necessary.

The Russians at first called the Western proposal "no plan at all," complained that it "puts off disarmament indefinitely, stressing collection of information instead of disbanding bases." The West, said Russia's delegate, impassive Soviet Deputy Foreign Minister Valerian Zorin, should give more study to "our plan for general and complete disarmament." Exasperated, U.S. Delegate Eaton rose to complain that Zorin had used that phrase "for 135 times since the start of the conference. Let's quit hollow words and get to real steps and measures." Zorin's reply was surprisingly mild, and the West was heartened when the Poles and Czechs politely asked for more details of the Western plan.

Single Problem. In popular cynicism, Geneva is a place where both sides, with no intention of settling anything, play pass-the-hot-potato, seeking to fix on the other fellow the public opprobrium for failing to agree. But that was not the atmosphere in last week's sessions. The West set out to relieve Soviet suspicions that inspection was not meant merely to pry into Soviet affairs. Russians could "abandon now" any hope that the West would lay down its arms without advance safeguards, said Eaton--but he was not thinking of "hordes of inspectors." Nor was the West unwilling to split up its package if agreement was possible on the most urgent problem, that of weapons in space. Eaton proposed an immediate agreement to declare outer space off limits for nuclear weapons, to "audit" all missile flights on an international basis, and to stop production of fissionable materials for military purposes. Stolidly, the Russians replied that disarmament is one single problem. "It should not be sliced up."

But, as the delegates picked up their papers to adjourn for the weekend, news came from the room next door, where the Big Three were meeting on nuclear test bans. Russia's Semyon Tsarapkin, asking for a special Saturday session for the announcement, said the Soviet Union was willing to sign a treaty proposed last month by President Eisenhower banning all nuclear tests except those underground experiments too small to be easily detected--if a "voluntary" moratorium without controls was accepted on subterranean tests. It was a clever move, for though the U.S. has long opposed any test ban that cannot be supervised, Brit ain is strongly in favor of compromise on small underground tests. "An important statement, which will be studied care fully," commented U.S. spokesmen (it was also embarrassing: the U.S. intends to explode an underground test bomb in New Mexico next January, its first since the Big Three agreed to stop testing temporarily 17 months ago).

If it was too soon to judge whether the Soviets were in earnest about arms limitation (a more realistic ambition than disarmament), there was at least a feeling that Nikita Khrushchev was concerned, like the U.S., over what is now called "escalation," or the proliferation of nuclear capability among other nations. One of the secrets confided to West Germany's Konrad Adenauer in Washington was the gist of a recent private message to Eisenhower from Khrushchev. There was even a hint in Washington that Khrushchev, too, like everybody else, would not like to hasten Red China's nuclear aptitude.

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