MILITARY IMPLICATIONS OF THE TREATY ON THE NON-PROLIFERATION OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 1969 U.S. SENATE, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:10 a.m., in room 212, Old Senate Office Building, Senator John Stennis (chairman) presiding. Present: Senators Stennis, Russell, Symington, Jackson, Ervin, Young of Ohio, Inouye, McIntyre, Byrd, Jr., of Virginia, Smith, Thurmond, Tower, Murphy, Brooke, and Goldwater. Also present: Senator Case of New Jersey. Armed Services Committee: T. Edward Braswell, Jr., chief of staff; Gordon A. Nease and Labre Garcia, professional staff members; Charles B. Kirbow, chief clerk; and Herbert S. Atkinson, assistant chief clerk. Preparedness Investigating Subcommittee: James T. Kendall, chief counsel; and Everette L. Harper, military consultant. Atomic Energy Commission: Capt. Julius P. Damrow, Robert D. O'Neill, and Antoinette Joseph. Joint Chiefs of Staff: Capt. Henry B. Sweitzer, USN. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency: Mel Christopher, congressional liaison; Charles N. Van Doren, acting general counsel; and Irving Gubman. OSD: Col. James M. Brower, OLA; and Jack L. Stempler, assistant to the Secretary of Defense (legislative affairs). The CHAIRMAN. The committee will please come to order. The committee meets today for the first day of hearings on the military implications of the treaty on the nonproliferation of nuclear weapons. This is an executive session, gentlemen. I think that the chances are that most of the testimony we take will be tied in with matters that are classified, or so close to it, that all of our hearings will perhaps be in executive session. Today we have as witnesses Gen. Earle G. Wheeler, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Dr. John S. Foster, Jr., Director of Defense Research and Engineering. Tomorrow the committee expects to hear Dr. Glenn T. Seaborg, Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, and Mr. Gerard C. Smith, Director of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. He will also be accompanied by Mr. Adrian Fisher, Deputy Director of that Agency, who was involved in the negotiation of the treaty and has considerable background in this matter. The Chair would indicate that a letter was written to Senator Fulbright on February 7, indicating the committee's plans in view of the interest of its members to conduct brief hearings on the military applications of the treaty. The chairman won't try to limit this hearing to strictly military matters, but I believe it is more consistent with our purposes to generally confine it to that field of inquiry. In order for each member to have a reasonable opportunity to question the witnesses, the Chair would like to suggest that we limit each member to 10 minutes for the first round and we will repeat the process as long as necessary, but that will be a rather liberal 10 minutes, trying to avoid breaking into your thought each time. I read in the press that Senator Mansfield is aiming at March 6 to bring this up on the Senate floor. He has told me he doesn't have any firm date, he wants to get it up as soon as he can, but by any yardstick we do not have a great deal of time. (There is inserted at this point the message from the President of the United States, dated July 9, 1968, transmitting the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.) [Executive H, 90th Cong., second sess.] TREATY ON THE NON-PROLIFERATION OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL To the Senate of the United States: THE WHITE HOUSE, July 9, 1968. I am transmitting herewith, for the advice and consent of the Senate to ratification, the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. This treaty was opened for signature on July 1, 1968 in Washington, London and Moscow. Ninety-five members of the United Nations had voted to commend it, and to request that it be opened for signature and ratification at the earliest possible date. On July 1 it was signed in Washington by the United States of America, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and 53 other states. Many others have indicated their intention to sign it promptly. I consider this treaty to be the most important international agreement limiting nuclear arms since the nuclear age began. It is a triumph of sanity and of man's will to survive. The treaty takes a major step toward a goal the United States has been seeking for the past twenty-two years. Beginning with the McMahon Act in 1946, our statutes have forbidden the transfer of our nuclear weapons to others. In the Executive branch, efforts to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons have complemented those of the Congress. Ever since the Baruch Plan of 1946, we have sought to achieve an international consensus on this subject. In making the first United States test ban proposal, President Eisenhower noted that his purpose was to curtail the uncontrolled spread of nuclear weap ons. When President Kennedy announced the successful negotiation of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in 1963, he expressed the hope that it would be the opening wedge in a campaign to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons. He pointed out that a number of other nations could soon have the capacity to produce such weapons, and urged that we use whatever time remained to persuade such countries not to follow that course. In 1964, in the first message I submitted to the Geneva Disarmament Conference, I proposed an agreement that nuclear weapons not be transferred to nonnuclear countries, and that all transfers of nuclear materials for peaceful purposes take place under international safeguards. In 1966, the United States Senate clearly showed its support for negotiations toward a non-proliferation treaty. Ninety-nine Senators declared themselves in favor of the Pastore resolution (Senate Resolution 179). It commended serious and urgent efforts to negotiate international agreements limiting the spread of nuclear weapons. It supported additional efforts by the President which were appropriate and necessary for the solution of nuclear proliferation problems. The treaty I am submitting to you today is the product of these efforts by the legislative and executive branches. Its provisions are described in detail in the accompanying report of the Secretary of State. Its central purpose is to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons. Its basic undertaking was deliberately patterned after United States atomic energy legislation, which forbids transfers of our nuclear weapons to others. The treaty not only makes such a prohibition binding on all nuclear powers; it reinforces the prohibition by barring non-nuclear countries from receiving them from any source, from manufacturing or otherwise acquiring them, and from seeking or receiving any assistance in their manufacture. The treaty, however, does more than just prohibit the spread of nuclear weapons. It would also promote the further development of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes under safeguards. This is the goal of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which resulted from President Eisenhower's "Atoms for Peace" plan. The IAEA is charged with the primary responsibility for safeguards under the non-proliferation treaty. It already has considerable experience in applying safeguards under international agreements for cooperation in the civil uses of nuclear energy. I believe that this treaty will greatly advance the goal of nuclear cooperation for peaceful purposes under international safeguards. It will require that all parties which export nuclear materials and equipment to non-nuclear-weapon states for peaceful purposes make sure that such materials, and those used or produced in such equipment, are under international safeguards. It will require all non-nuclear parties to accept international safeguards on all peaceful nuclear activities within their territories, under their jurisdiction, or carried out under their control anywhere. It will help insure cooperation in the field of peaceful uses of nuclear energy, and the exchange of scientific and technological information on such peaceful applications. It will enable all countries to assist non-nuclear parties to the treaty with their peaceful nuclear activities, confident that their assistance will not be diverted to the making of nuclear weapons. It obligates the nuclear-weapon parties to make potential benefits from any peaceful applications of nuclear explosions available on a non-discriminatory basis, and at the lowest possible cost-to parties to the treaty that are required to give up the right to have their own nuclear explosives. By 1985 the world's peaceful nuclear power stations will probably be turning out enough by-product plutonium for the production of tens of nuclear bombs every day. This capability must not be allowed to result in the further spread of nuclear weapons. The consequences would be nuclear anarchy, and the energy designed to light the world could plunge it into darkness. But the treaty has a significance that goes beyond its furtherance of these important aspects of United States nuclear policy. In the great tradition of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, it represents another step on the journey toward world peace I believe that its very achievement, as well as its provisions, enhances the prospects of progress toward disarmament. On Monday, July 1-as this treaty was signed on behalf of the United StatesI announced that agreement had been reached with the Soviet Union to enter into discussions in the nearest future on the limitation and reduction of both offensive nuclear weapons systems, and systems of defense against ballistic missiles. Thus there is hope that this treaty will mark the beginning of a new phase in the quest for order and moderation in international affairs. I urgently recommend that the Senate move swiftly to enhance our security and that of the entire world by giving its consent to the ratification of this treaty. LYNDON B. JOHNSON. LETTER OF SUBMITTAL DEPARTMENT OF STATE, The PRESIDENT, The White House: I have the honor to submit to you, with the recommendation that it be transmitted to the Senate for its advice and consent to ratification, a certified copy of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, signed in Washing ton on July 1, 1968, on behalf of the United States of America, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and 53 other states. It is open for signature by all other states, many of which have expressed their intention to sign it. Since introducing the Baruch Plan in 1946, the United States has endeavored to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons. Beginning with the McMahon Act in that same year. United States legislation has consistently forbidden the transfer of such weapons to others. In the spring of 1966, after extensive hearings by the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, a broad consensus of the Senate was reached in support of negotiations toward a nuclear non-proliferation treaty under which other countries would be bound to follow this same policy. Senate Resolution 179, which was sponsored by Senator Pastore and co-sponsored by 58 other Senators, was adopted by a bipartisan vote of 84-0, with all absent Senators but one declaring themselves in favor. Since that time the negotiations of the treaty have been closely followed by the Congressional advisers to the Eighteen Nation Disarmament Committee, and have been the subject of annual reports to the Congress and numerous hearings. They were discussed at hearings held in May and June 1966 by the Subcommittee on National Security and International Operations of the Senate Committee on Government Operations; in June 1966 by the Committee on Foreign Relations; in February and March 1967 by that Committee's Subcommittee on Disarmament; and in February 1968 by the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. International concern on the subject of proliferation was demonstrated on December 4, 1961 when the General Assembly of the United Nations unanimously approved a resolution calling on all states to conclude an international agreement to prevent the wider dissemination of nuclear weapons. In a message to the Eighteen Nation Disarmament Committee (ENDC) on January 21, 1964, you proposed that there be agreement "to stop the spread of nuclear weapons to nations not now controlling them" and "that all transfers of nuclear materials for peaceful purposes take place under effective international safeguards". On June 15, 1965, the United Nations Disarmament Commission passed a resolution by a vote of 83-1 (with 18 abstentions) urging that the ENDC give priority attention to a treaty to prevent the further spread of nuclear weapons. On August 15, 1965, after consultations within the Atlantic Alliance, the United States submitted to the ENDC a draft of such a treaty. The Soviet Union presented its version of a draft treaty at the Twentieth Session of the United Nations General Assembly in September 1965. After almost two years of negotiations, including extensive consultations with our allies, the United States and the Soviet Union presented to the ENDC_identical drafts of a treaty on August 24, 1967. The article on safeguards was left blank because of inability to reach agreement on a formulation that was acceptable to all. In the ensuing months, further efforts were made to reach agreement, and consideration was given to various proposals put forth by members of the Committee. On December 19, 1967, the United Nations General Assembly adopted, by a vote of 112-1 (with 4 abstentions), a resolution calling upon the ENDC to resume negotiations of the treaty on an urgent basis, requesting submission of a full report to the General Assembly on or before March 15, 1968, and recommending resumption of the 22nd General Assembly to consider the treaty upon receipt of such report. When the ENDC reconvened on January 18, 1968, the United States and the Soveit Union submitted a complete treaty draft, including an article on safeguards which had been formulated in light of the extensive consultations in the North Atlantic Council. The January 18 draft also contained new articles and revisions which addressed concerns raised by various non-nuclear-weapon states. On March 11, 1968, the ENDC Co-Chairman presented a revised treaty draft, responsive to additional suggestions made by non-nuclear-weapon states, which was reported to the United Nations General Assembly. On April 24, 1968, the United Nations General Assembly reconvened to consider the new treaty draft. Following thorough debate in the First Committee, in which further suggestions were made by non-nuclear-weapon states for improving the draft text, the United States and the Soviet Union presented a final draft on May 31, 1968; the changes in the text were directed especially at the strengthening provisions relating to the peaceful uses of nuclear energy. |