for test suspension unless and until there was an amendment to the
U. S. atomic energy legislation which would permit the British to
secure our technical information if they agreed to stop testing
their own weapons. The French, predicted Secretary Dulles, would
take very much the same position.
As far as the inspection zones proposed by Governor Stassen were concerned, Secretary Dulles expressed the conviction that |
these zones went far beyond anything which had been approved by the
RATO Council, and he strongly doubted that the NATO Council would
approve of them. Secretary Dulles also expressed great doubt that
two-thirds of the members of the United States Senate would agree
in approving the Stassen proposals. Most Americans don't like
gerrymandering, and members of Congress from the West Coast would
strongly oppose having their areas opened to Soviet inspection
while the rest of the country was free of such inspection. Finally, said Secretary Dulles, on this subject of zones he agreed with
the views of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to the effect that Gover-
nor Stassen's proposed zones were heavily weighted in favor of the
Soviet Union in terms of both military and industrial significance.
Secretary Dulles said that he must, however, agree that
from the world standpoint the Council must consider the views expressed by Ambassador Lodge, together with other significant views
on this subject. Secretary Dulles felt that the ordinary run of
people in many countries were going along with the simplified Soviet views on disarmament. This, however, was not true of the govermnents of these countries, most of whom thought our own position
was sound even though they had to make apparent concessions to
their public opinion. This ill-informed public opinion was undoubtedly important, but so also was the fact that we had taken a
firm position last August on the subject of disarmament, had insisted that this position was sound, and had likewise stressed in public statements the emphasis that we were now giving to the achieve-
ment of "clean" tactical weapons.
If we retreat from this general
position sketched above, Secretary Dulles predicted that we would
momentarily appease hostile public opinion, but at the same time we
would invite a new Soviet propaganda campaign, the essential keynotes of which would be either that the United States is now thoroughly frightened and willing to make any kind of disarmament agreement, or, alternatively, that the USSR had always been right in its
own proposals for disarmament and now at long last the United States
was coming to admit it. It seemed to Secretary Dulles that this was
& very wrong time to make these concessions. This was a time when
everybody was looking for signs of wealmess in the United States.
It was also a time which would provide the occasion for a fresh
Soviet propaganda onslaught on the subject of disarmament.
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