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MHMORANDUM ¥OR THE semomen
THE WHITE HOUSE
On April 26 I met with the recently appointed group of dis-
armament advisers: General Gruenther, General Smith,
Robert Lovett and John McCloy. Lewis Strauss, Donald Quarles
and James Killian were also present to state their views. We
had a very thorough discussion of the present situation,
There was a consensus that steps must be taken to put
clearly before the world the U.S. devotion to peace and to reduction
of the arms burden, Only by concrete actions can we counteract the
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false picture, all too prevalent abroad, of the United States as a
militaristic nation.
Nuclear testing was recognized to be a key to progress in this
direction. So long as we continue to insist upon our freedom to test,
the wide opposition to our position shields the Soviet Union from
pressure to agree to the positive U.S. proposals for the stopping of
bomb production and for “open skies". Continued testing will undoubtedly lead to further refinement of our nuclear arsenal -- though
Dr. Killian makes a persuasive case that continued testing will help
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the Soviet weapons program more than it will ours. But the slight
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This analysis was accepted by the four advisers. They cautioned,
however, that we should not enhance Soviet prestige by remaining inflexible on the nuclear testing issue until a Summit meeting, U.S.
agreement to a test suspension at the Summit, they seemed to feel,
would give the Soviet Union a double victory: acceptance of the Soviet
thesis on nuclear testing, and confirmation of the Soviet argument that
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military gains appear to be outweighed by the political losses, which
may well culminate in the moral isolation of the United States in the
coming years.