REVISED PLAN ON ARMS

Press, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 26605, 15 December 1951, Page 7

REVISED PLAN ON ARMS

New Proposals By West

PARIS, December 13. Britain, the United States and France introduced in the United Nations today . a revised disarmament plan designed to meet some of the Soviet objections disclosed during last week’s meeting of the Big Four sub-commit-tee. The new plan retains the basic ideas of their original proposals but makes some changes on secondary issues.

It leaves unchanged the major Western demands for closely supervised arms cuts. The three Western Powers have also refused to accept the Soviet Union’s demand that the atom bomb be prohibited immediately.

An American spokesman said none of the changes in the draft was sweeping. The resolution may be debated by the Political Committee to-morrow. The preamble of the revised draft contains a new paragraph in which the General Assembly reaffirms its desire “that the United Nations develop an effective collective security system to maintain peace and that the armed forces and armaments of the world be progressively reduced in accordance with the purposes and principles of the Charter.” The new resolution concedes the Russian request that the new commission should be called the “Atomic Energy and Conventional Armaments Commission.” An American spokesman explained that the Soviet Foreign Minister (Mr Vyshinsky) had objected to the name “Disarmament Commission” because he was afraid it might be misunderstood as meaning total disarmament and not merely a reduction in armaments. Directives to Commission Another concession to the Soviet view is contained in directives to be given to the new commission by the Assembly. Among these is one to prepare a draft treaty for the limitation and reduction of armaments, “and for the effective international control of atomic energy to ensure the prohibition of atomic weapons and the use of atomic energy for peaceful purposes only.” , . In the earlier draft the commission was merely told that one _of the primary objectives of the United Nations was to achieve effective international control to ensure the prohibition of atomic weapons. The new resolution defines more clearly the task of the commission to incorporate the atomic weapons ban in the proposed treaty. The commission is also directed “to determine how the over-all limits and restrictions on all armed forces and all armaments can be calculated and fixed.” This is less direct than the earlier draft, which gave the commission the clear-cut task of formulating over-all limits on all armed forces and armaments. The new resolution also says the commission should prepare its first report by June 1 next year.