SOVIET DISARMAMENT PROPOSAL

Press, Volume LXXXV, Issue 25933, 13 October 1949, Page 5

SOVIET DISARMAMENT PROPOSAL

Details Given To Security Council UNITED STATES AND BRITAIN OBJECT (New Zealand Press Association.) (Rec. 8.15 p.m.) NEW YORK, October 11. Russia to-day proposed that the Security Council conduct £ world census of armaments, armed forces, and atomic weapons. Mr Jacob Malik, the Soviet delegate, formally laid the proposal before the Security Council at the end of a long and involved debate. He rejected a French proposal to hold a census of armed forces and conventional armaments, which would exclude atomic bombs. He said that the proposal was an attempt to ferret out information about the Soviet forces without giving away any information about atomic weapons. The Council adjourned without .voting on either the French or Soviet proposals. Its next meeting will be held on Friday. Sir Alexander Cadogan (Britain) said that an overwhelming majority of. United Nations members had already pronounced themselves against the Soviet proposal. Mr Warren Austin, head of the United States delegation, told the press after the meeting that the Soviet proposal was "meaningless and another attempt to fool the public.” He said that a census of bombs was of no importance to security. What counted most was to know how much atomic fissionable material a country possessed, as this could quickly be converted Into atomic bombs.

Submitting the Soviet proposal. Mr alik said: “The Soviet delegation >pes that States honestly in favour laying the cards on the table will pport the Soviet proposal for inrmation not only on conventional maments but also on atomic eapons.” Earlier Mr Malik had cast the jrty-ninth Soviet veto against a ajority report on conventional armaents. which said that disarmament •uld not be put into effect until there as an atmosphere of international infidence and security. Mr Malik repeated the Soviet deand that the question of arms reiction must be linked directly with rohibition of atomic weapons. Mr ’alik said that the Western Powers

had artificially torn the two problems apart. The United States and Britain, he added, were to blame for the failure of the United Nations to agree on either atomic control or arms reduction. The Western Powers continued to talk about arms cuts and atomic control while preparing for a new war. Mr Malik proposed that a United Nations disarmament commission should prepare a convention for the reduction of the arms held by the Big Five, and that the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission should prepare immediately a convention prohibiting atomic weapons and establishing control over atomic energy, both of these conventions to be simultaneously implemented.