THE GENEVA DISARMAMENT CONFERENCE: STATUS AND PROSPECTS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP85T00875R001100100025-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 13
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 11, 2005
• Sequence Number: 25
• Publication Date: February 16, 1971
• Content Type: IM

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DIRECTORATE OF
INTELLIGENCE
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Intelligence Memorandum
The Geneva Disarmament Conference:
Status And Prospects
WCZt
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16 February 1971
"No. 1264/71
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WARNING
This document contains information affecting the national
defense of the United States, within the meaning of Title
18, sections 793 a-,d 794, of the US Code, as amended.
Its transmission or revelation of its contents to or re-
ceipt by an unauthorized person is prohibited by law.
OROUY 1
YItV1.l11- YIIOM1I AUTOMATIC
I)OWNONAUINII ANTI
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CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
Directorate of Intelligence
16 February 1971
INTELLIGENCE MEMORANDUM
The Geneva Disarmament Conference:
Status and Prospects
Introduction
Until overshadowed by the strategic arms lim-
itation talks (SALT) that x.egan in 1969 at Helsinki,
the multilateral arms control conference at Geneva
was the primary vehicle for international negotia-
tion on disarmament measures. Although there has
been widespread dissatisfaction with the pace of
its accomplishments, the conference nevertheless
has accounted for all but one of the arms-control
agreements reached in recent years. (The '..reaty
of Tlatelolco banning nuclear weapons in Latin Amer-
ica was the exception.) Last year, after two years
of work, the 25 participating nations of the con-
ference completed work on the treaty limiting mili-
tary utilization of the ocean floor, and it was
opened for signature last week. The Geneva talks
resume on 23 February, and the chief focus of at-
tention in this session is expected to be the prob-
lem of controls on chemical and biological weapons
(CBW). This memorandum will briefly review the
background of the Geneva conference, its component
groups and their particular objectives, the specific
issues on the 1971 agenda, and the general outlook
with respect to the all-important problem of moni-
toring and verifying compliance with arms accords.
Note: This memorandum was prepared by the Office of
Current Intelligence and coordinated within CIA.
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Origin's 'of' 'the' Genova Disarmament Con'ference
1. The first resolution adopted by the UN Gen-
eral Assembly after its convocation in 1946 estab-
lished the UN Atomic Energy Commission and assigned
it the urgent task of making specific proposals for
the eli urination of atomic and other weapons of rlass
destruction from national armaments. For the next
fifteen years the General Assembly remained the prin-
cipal venue for arms-control discussions, but the
debates became increasingly unwieldy and contentious
as the nonaligned nations became more and more in-
sistent on comprehensive disarmament measures. As
a result, the major powers began to find it more use-
ful to hold a series of ad hoc, inter-bloc confer-
ences, and in 1959 the Big Four foreign ministers
set up a Ten-Nation Committee on Disarmament. The
five members of. this Committee from the Warsaw Pact
were the USSR, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and
Romania; Canada, France, Italy, and the UK joined the
US on the NATO side.
2. Continuing pressure from the nonaligned coun-
tries, combined with promising developments in discus-
sions among the Ten, soon led the superpowers to de-
cide to re-establish a more representative disarma-
ment negotiating body, but one that was less explic-
itly tied to the General Assembly. The result, an-
nounced in December 1961 and endorsed unanimously
by the Assembly that same month, was the Eighteen-
Nation Disarmament Committee (ENDC). The nonaligned
states invited by the superpowers to participate with
the Ten in periodic meetings in Geneva were Brazil,
Burma,' Ethiopia, India, Mexico, Nigeria, Sweden and
Egypt. When the ENDC began to consider arms control
measures, especially the Limited Test Ban (LTB), France
opted out because it was not prepared to adhere to the
ban at that time. Paris, however, has not withdrawn
officially from the Geneva talks.
Accomplishments since 1962
3. The ENDC was largely responsible for the
conclusion of four principal disarmament accords
over the past decade: the LTB Treaty of 1963, the
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1966 Outer Space Treaty, the Nonproliferation Treaty
(NPT) opened for signature in 1968, and this year's
seabeds treaty. These agreements were drafted by
the superpowers--in the cases of the LTBT and the
NPT, with the UK as a cosponsor--after thorough dis-
cussion both with the other participants in the
Geneva talks and with other nonrepresented, but
vitally concerned governments like West Germany
and Japan. The ENDC also played an important role
in securing collateral or confidence-building meas-
ures, such as the "hot line" between Moscow and Wash-
ington.
Problem Areas
4. Nevertheless, the ENDC has made little head-
way toward the objective that provided much of the
impetus for its creation--to develop a schema for
general and complete disarmament (GCD). Although
the SALT negotiations have moderated some of the
concern over nuclear delivery systems, there is
still strong sentiment in favor of negotiations
leading to a comprehensive test ban (CTB) and a
cut-off of production of fissionable material by
the superpowers for weapons purposes. The nonaligned
nations recognize that these subjects, as well as
the CBW issue, involve fundamental differences be-
tween the superpowers over verification procedures,
but that does not assuage their unhappiness over
the lack of progress by the US and the USSR toward
reconciling their views.
5. One consequence of this dissatisfaction has
been steady pressure in the UN General Assembly to
expand the committee to permit greater nonaligned
influence. In the summer of 1969, the superpowers
bowed to these concerns first by adding Japan and
Mongolia and a little later by inviting six other
countries to participate in the Geneva talks: the
Netherlands from NATO; Pact member Hungary; and non-
aligned nations Pakistan, Yugoslavia, Argentina, and
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Morocco. Since this expansion, the talks have been
called the Conference of the Committee on Disarmament
(CCD). Both the larger membership and the opening of
SALT served to put the CCD and the superpowers in
somewhat better repute at the 1969 and 1970 Assemblies.
The Three Groups
6. The Communist delegates at the CCD--6 War-
saw Pact members plus Mongolia--have generally main-
tained the near identity of views that one would ex-
pect. They hold planning meetings before the talks
resume each year and presumably meet fairly fre-
quently to discuss tactics after the CCD has con-
vened. The Soviets usually present the major Com-
munist treaty drafts, but they use their allies to
offer the subsequent amendments that Moscow deems
advisable. Only Romania has not fallen completely
in line, opting in 1970 to join a Western-nonaligned
working group on GCD at the talks.
7. Since Japan was admitted, the five NATO
participants have generally included its representa-
tive within their consultation circle at Geneva.
Delegates of the five report to the North Atlantic
Council at NATO headquarters on a rotating basis.
There is a high degree of accord in the Western
camp on the principal issues before the CCD, but
the allies of the US have never been chary of of-
fering initiatives developed by themselves. Canada
and Japan have been particularly active in the CTB
field, and in 1970 Italy was the sponsor of the cross-
caucus working group on GCD which Romania joined.
Italy also played a leading role in the ruckus be-
tween the US and EURATOM over the safeguards pro-
visions of the NPT.
8. The nonaligned 12 have never formed a co-
hesive group at the disarmament talks because of
the disparity in their views. There are neutral
states such as Sweden, nations generally amenable
to Communist views such as Egypt, and Latin Ameri-
can states that are frequently inclined to support
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US positions. The major impetus for action within
the group comes from its two most voluble members,
Mrs. Alva Myrdal of Sweden and Alfonso Garcia Robles
of Mexico. Both are adept at twitting the super-
powers. Over the years the Swedes have produced
some of the best studies at the CCD on verifica-
tion problems.
9. A rash of publicity--mostly involving the
US--attending several incidents in the late 1960s
provoked considerable interest at the CCD in the
problem of CBW controls. Capitalizing on this de-
velopment, the Soviets drafted a convention in 1969
prohibiting the development, production, and stock-
piling of CBW agents and requiring the destruction
of existing stocks. Although many approved a com-
prehensive approach, including both CW and BW, most
CCDnatibns have found the Soviets' verification
provision--added in 1970--unpalatable. This pro-
vision would permit complainants to appeal to the
UN Security. Council for investigations where the
Big Power veto might apply.
10. After the US had announced its decision
to renc-unce any use of toxins, a British draft
BW convention of 1969 was refined to include such
weapons. The only reference in the British draft
to CW, however, merely commits signatories to "nego-
tiations in good faith on effective measures to
strengthen the existing constraints..." The veri-
fication procedure in the UK text,'although more
detailed than that of the Soviets, is also by ap-
peal to the Council.
11. The Soviets on occasion have told the US
that they could agree to a convention confined to BW
agents if certain conditions were satisfied: an end
to the use of tear gas and herbicides in Vietnam, and
US ratification of the Geneva Protocol of 1925. They
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have shown particular interest in a Moroccan proposal
that would ban CW and BW in one document, but defer
implementation of the CW sections until verification
problems can be overcome. The Moroccan initiative
reflects the impact of a series of detailed papers
prepared by the US--with some help from the Japanese--
on the difficulties of verifying a CW ban given the
present state of safeguards te^hniques.
12; As long as there is a propaganda advantage
,to be gained on CW issues, Moscow is unlikely to move
more explicitly in the direction of the Moroccan
scheme. The Swedish delegation is also certain to
give the US a rough time in the CW area, which is a
key concern of Mrn. My.rdal,.. The CCD conferees will
certainly devote a high percentage of their sessions
this year to CBW, with considerable pressure likely
to develop for agreement on more adequate forms of
verification than merely the right to appeal to the
Security Council. Over the long term, if not at the
coming meeting, the prospect for CCD--and subsequently
world-wide--agreement on at least BW controls appears
very good.
13. Since the signing of the LTB in 1963, the
nonaligned delegates at the Geneva talks have mounted
a campaign of fluctuating intensity to secure a CTB
to close off the option still available to the super-
powers of conducting underground nuclear tests that
cause no radioactive fallout beyond national borders.
The advent of SALT has quickened this interest, but
the principal stumbling block--the fundamental dif-
ferences between the US and the USSR over means to
ensure compliance--remains a formidable one. The US
insists that on-site international inspection, a
concept traditionally anathema to the Soviets, be in-
cluded as a verification option.
14. The other CCD conferees have not been de-
terred by this impasse and have offered a variety
of proposals to facilitate steps toward a CTB. In
addition to the cut-off proposition already mentioned,
one prominent idea is a treaty banning tests above a
specified seismic magnitude--usually 4.5 on the Richter
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scale--and providing for a guaranteed exchange of
seismic data. The 4.5 level for detonations presum-
ably would not prevent application of peaceful nuclear
explosion technology, but would provide an additional
safeguard against accidental venting of radioactive
materials into the atmosphere.
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some oun ries,
under UN auspices, have already begun voluntarily to
exchange seismic data.
15. A CTB is second only to CBW in interest to
the Geneva delegations this year, but no real progress
toward a comprehensive treaty is likely until national
verification capabilities are significantly upgraded.
Although the outlook for a seismic magnitude treaty
is somewhat better, agreement on this probably must
wait the dF:fmonstrated success of a data exchange pro-
gram. Should Moscow drop its categorical refusal to
participate in such undertakings, progress at the CCD
this year in firming up exchange arrangements could
be quite significant. The USSR may, however, for
propaganda reasons support again the Egyptian call
for an unverified moratorium on nuclear testing.
16. Both of the superpowers submitted draft:
treaties on GCD at the initial meeting of the Geneva
conferees, in 1962, and these ostensibly still repre-
sent their official objectives. The Soviet text ad-
vocated a five-year, three-stage approach to dis-
armament to be policed indirectly, e.g., by budgetary
controls, and by peacekeeping contingents under con-
trol of the UN Security Council. The US document
also envisaged a three-stage movement toward GCD,
but over a longer time frame and with verification
by on-site inspection and by UN peacekeeping measures
less subject to big-power veto in the Council. Given
these diverging philosophies, the conferees rather
quickly lost interest in GCD and have since concen-
trated on more specific or "partial" measures like
the LTBT and the NPT.
17. The pLssibility that a meaningful accord
might emerge from SALT, however, has led many of the
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other,CCD participants to renew their interest in
GCD. They believe that success in the difficult
area of controls on nuclear delivery systems could
permit rapid agreements further down the disarmament
track. To the Soviets' chagrin, Romania in 1970 ac-
cepted an Italian bid at the Geneva talks to join a
nine-nation ad hoc working group on GCD, but this in-
formal grouping-Nis thus far been unable to make any
progress.
18. Three nonaligned states--Mexico, Sweden,
and Yugoslavia--remain strongly committed to pushing
the GDC concept at Geneva and have drafted their own
program on the subject. There is little expectation
that anything significant can develop as long as the
SALT continue without decisive results, and, as in
the case of CTB, it is unlikely that France and
Communist China would adhere to general arms control
measures anyway. Nevertheless, the nonaligned rep-
resentatives at the CCD will probably continue to
seek, and with some success, to involve allies of the
superpowers in the drafting of proposed schemas on GCD.
Other Topics
19. The CCD has served as a useful forum for
limited discussion of rather esoteric arms control
problems--laser and radiological warfare--and matters
of ;tangential,concern, such as the question of a
conference on European security. With the US pro-
viding much of the impetus, the 25 Geneva conferees
in 1970 also delved fairly deeply-into the possibil-
ity of regional measures to limit conventional arms.
The 1971 session is likely to produce intensified in-
terest in the feasibility of monitoring regional bans
on arms sales, a subject pushed by Sweden to the dis-
may of several other nonaligned states represented at
Geneva--the Arab states, Pakistan, India, and Argentina.
20. Sweden, using the IS and Japanese CW veri-
fication studies as models, has drafted a paper to
attempt a more systematic, general approach to veri-
fication methods that would cut across specific dis-
armament issues. It hopes to sell this document to
the other CCD participants, but the agenda will be
confined essentially to precise options on particu-
lar subjects. One interesting item that Stockholm
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has resurrected--but probably cannot get a hearing for
at this time--is the establishment of an International
Disarmament Organization, a policing entity referred
to in both the US and 5e.?viet GCD treaties of 1962.
Assessment
21. The prospect that the forthcoming session of
the CCD will see at best only limited progress toward
an agreement on BW controls underscores once more the
rather limited results that the postwar disarmament ef-
fort has so far achieved and the difficulties confront-
ing a more substantial achievement. Most authorities
agree that the LTB was important both as a nonprolifera-
tion device and as a curb on nuclear testing that could
become a menace to world health. The NPT, hopefully,
will also serve to restrain at least some of the
threshold countries from acquiring nuclear weapons,
and the safeguards provided for by the treaty are an
important precedent-setting experiment in enforcement
.of arms'control agreements by international inspection.
The outer space and seabeds treaties have likewise been
hailed as useful measures against the introduction of
weapons of mass destruction in environments where they
have not as yet been emplaced.
22. None of these agreements, however, has served
to slow the nuclear arms race between the superpowers,
prevented the nuclear nonsignatories--China and France--
from atmospheric testing to strengthen their nuclear
arsenals, nor greatly discouraged some of the advanced
countries from efforts to produce their own nuclear
weapons. Not only have these agreements failed to pre-
vent the introduction of increasingly sophisticated
arms into the Middle East, and other areas of conflict,
they have not even discouraged the exporters of arms
from seeking markets in areas relatively free of re-
gional tension and comparatively remote from big-
power rivalries.. Moreover, the sum total of money
saved by these agreements is too little to alleviate,
far less correct, the alleged imbalance in the prior-
ity of world expenditures--an imbalance that the
General Assembly's forthcoming study of the "social
and economic consequences of the arms race" will likely
spotlight once more.
23. How to narrow the gap between'the modest
gains the disarmament effort has scored and the much
larger needs to which all governments at least pay
lip service is obviously a problem that will not be
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resolved at this year's CCD session. All of the par-
ticipants probably agree that the work in Geneva will
depend on the prevailing world atmosphere---that the
chances for moving ahead would be greatly improved
by a substantial agreement in SALT, by a running down
of the Indochina War, and by a negotiated settlement
in the Middle East, especially were this to include a
regional arms limitations agreement and international
peacekeeping arrangements. But most of the partici-
pants probably believe that all that can be realisti-
cally hoped for is to secure the limited beachheads
that have been established--e. g. , by the verifica-
tion arrangements under the NPT--while chipping away
at specific issues such as CBW.
24. As the persisting interest in GCD and last
year's proposals from Sweden would indicate, however,
there is a minority point of view that continues to
hold that specific measures must be accompanied by a
n:ore comprehensive approach if any really significant
breakthroughs are to be attained. Their position
starts from the premise that Limited agreements will
remain only peripherally beneficial unless the central
problem of verification is solved through the crea-
tion of international mechanisms of general applica-
tion; only then, they contend, will it be possible
to move away from the syndrome in which both the nu-
clear and non-nuclear nations sponsor only measures
applicable primarily to the other.
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