END OF NUCLEAR TESTS

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28554, 7 April 1958, Page 11

END OF NUCLEAR TESTS

Russia Asks Britain And U.S. To Follow (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 8 p.m.) LONDON, April 5. The Soviet leader, Mr Khrushchev, has sent messages to President Eisenhower and the British Prime Minister, Mr Macmillan, on the cessation of nuclear weapons tests, it was learned tonight. The Soviet news agency, Tass, said that in a message to President Eisenhower, delivered yesterKhrushchev expressed the hope that, the United States Government would join the initiative of the Soviet Union and thus make possible the Universal cessation of nuclear weapons tests for all time. If other nuclear Powers refused to end tests, then Russia would consider itself free of the assumed commitment to discontinue weapon tests, said the message.

The letter to Mr Macmillan was under study, it was announced in London. Mr Khrushchev’s message was forwarded to the President by the Soviet Ambassador, through the Secretary of State, Mr Dulles, yesterday, Tass said. “The Soviet Government arrived at the conclusion that the solution of the question of discontinuation of nuclear weapon tests brooks nodelay because we cannot allow the health of the people to be harmed irreparably,” the message said. “The Soviet Government has resolved on the strength of the U.S.S.R. Supreme Soviet decision to end unilaterally tests of all kinds of atomic and hvdrogen weapons as of March 31, 1958. “The Soviet Government approaches the Government of the United States, also the Government of Great Britain, with a proposal to follow this example,” the message said. “Genuine Confidence” “If the Governments of the powers now possessing nuclear weapons support the proposal and also decide to renounce further tests the question deeply agitating the minds of all peoples will finally be solved and a big step will thereby be made towards the establishment of genuine confidence between States and the consolidation of peace,” it said. “If the Governments of powers having nuclear weapons refuse to respond to the Soviet decision, and prefer to continue their experimenting with atomic and hydrogen weapons, the Soviet Union will have no other choice under the circumstances but to consider itself, in the interests of security, free of the assumed commitment to discontinue nuclear weapon tests. “The Soviet Government would not like this to happen,? Tass said. Mr Khrushchev said that tie believed it would be expedient for Russia and the United States, countries that first developed atomic and hydrogen weapons, and who possessed considerable stocks, to come out “as initiators in the noble cause of ending nuclear weapons tests without further delay.”