Toward Disarmament?

During the long, tortuous nuclear-test-ban wrangle between the U.S. and Russia, it often seemed that neither side really expected a test ban, that the wall of suspicion between the two nations was unbreachable. But two weeks ago, the world caught a glint of something that hinted at Russian willingness to negotiate. At the U.S.-British-Soviet test-ban conference in Geneva, Russian Delegate Semyon K.

Tsarapkin made what seemed to be a significant concession.

In a departure from Russia's longtime insistence that a nuclear test ban must start with a flat ban on all tests, detectable or not, Tsarapkin agreed to accept the U.S.'s distinction between 1) detectable tests, which the U.S. is willing to ban if an adequate detection system is worked out, and 2) smaller underground tests, which the U.S. is not willing to include in the treaty ban because at present there is no known practical way of detecting them (see box next page). Said Tsarapkin: Russia will agree to a treaty banning only tests above the threshold of detection--provided that the U.S. and Britain agree to a "voluntary" moratorium on subthreshold tests while experts work out better detection techniques.

Through the Haze. At the President's Camp David mountain retreat in Maryland last week, Britain's Prime Minister Harold Macmillan and President Eisenhower discussed the Soviet proposal over the course of two days, agreed on a joint statement accepting a "voluntary moratorium" on below-threshold tests--provided that Russia enter into a treaty banning detectable tests under an adequate inspection system, and agree to a "coordinated research program" for improving detection techniques.

Even before Macmillan's plane left London, the Administration had decided in its own councils to accept Tsarapkin's moratorium proposal in the interest of getting a test-ban treaty that might possibly lead to progress on disarmament.

Cutting through the haze of passion that has often obscured the facts on both sides of the test-ban debate, the Administration had arrived at the conclusion that 1) a test-ban treaty would be well worth while if it made possible eventual progress toward controlled disarmament; and 2) Russia would probably not risk trying to cheat an inspected test ban, and--most important--could not gain any really decisive advantage even if it did cheat.

In the sessions that hammered out the decision to accept the Soviet moratorium proposal, Air Force Secretary James Douglas, sitting in for traveling Defense Secretary Thomas Gates, made it clear that the Pentagon, to a surprising extent, had come around to a conviction that the chance for an inspection agreement outweighed the risks and costs of a test ban.

Central Intelligence Agency Chief Allen Dulles reported that the CIA had no evidence that Russia had ever shown any interest in testing to develop tactical nuclear weapons. Any break in Russia's wall of suspicion and secrecy, he added, would be to the U.S.'s interests. Atomic Energy Commission Chairman John McCone, arguing that the U.S. needs underground tests to develop tactical nuclear weapons, found himself almost alone in the Administration's top councils, and at the end the President ruled against him.

Merely the Beginning. The President's moratorium decision left plenty of obstacles still lying in the way of a safe guarded test-ban treaty. For one thing, the Russians may really not want any agreement at all, may be dangling concessions to prolong the talks and thus achieve their original aim of getting the U.S. to halt nuclear tests without any agreement on inspection. On this, the U.S. might get a better reading at the summit in mid-May. But even if President Eisenhower and Premier Khrushchev resolve the basic conflicts on inspection and control measures at the summit, it will still take the test-ban negotiators months to work out the details.

After a treaty is signed, it will take two years or more to set up a functioning detection system. As the U.S. learned after the armistice in Korea, reaching a truce with Communists can be merely the beginning of harassments and frustrations. And even if the detection system is effective, the problem of constant patrol and vigilance is just beginning. Perhaps a greater danger than the risk of undetected underground testing is the risk that the U.S. would be lulled into relaxation by the mere existence of an agreement.

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