NEW SOVIET PLAN TO CUT ARMS

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29222, 4 June 1960, Page 13

NEW SOVIET PLAN TO CUT ARMS

U.N. Force Proposed; “Big Step Forward” (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 11 p.m.) MOSCOW, June 3. Mr Khrushchev today called for quick adoption of a new compromise disarmament plan, which he intended to produce at the Paris summit conference, to avert the threat of a global nuclear war. The new Soviet plan proposes complete disarmament in three stages and the reduction of national armed forces to a militia which would be at the disposal of the United Nations Security Council. The initial reaction from a United Nations source close to the Geneva disarmament conference, which is due to resume next week, was that the Soviet plan represented a “considerable step forward.” This informant said the proposals constituted a clear attempt by the Russians to come closer to the Western position. swiping proposals were described as a development of the programme put forward in the United Nations General Assembly last September by Mr Khrushchev.

In_ a preamble to what were described as the “basic clauses of a treaty on general and complete disarmament,” the document said the Soviet Union expressed its readiness to begin disarmament with the destruction of all means of delivering nuclear weapons to their targets, in spite of the fact that it has a generally recognised superiority in the most modern and effective means of this kind, namely, intercontinental ballistic missiles.

This having been done, the document said, such measures as the prohibition of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, the destruction of all stockpiles of such weapons and the cessation of their manufacture could be carried out during the succeeding, second stage of the programme. “The threat of nuclear war in any form would be removed for ever,” the statement said. “At the same time, a substantial reduction in the armed forces and conventional armaments of States would be carried out.”

The third stage, the document said, would be marked by the completion of general and complete disarmament, the disbanding of all armies, war ministries and general staffs, the abolition of compulsory military service and of the military training of all young people, and the complete discontinuance of expenditure for military purposes. “It is proposed that this entire programme of disarmament should be carried out under effective international control, on the basis of an international treaty and within a specified period of time—four years or some other agreed term.” the Soviet proposals said. United Nations sources expressed the view that the Soviet Union had come a long way on the controversial issue of controls. They noted also that Mr Khrushchev had laid some emphasis last year in his complete and general disarmament proposals on a four-year period for

the carrying out of his plans. Now the phrase “or some other agreed term” was used.

Referring to the problem of ensuring peace and maintaining international law after complete and general disarmament, the document said the Soviet Government proposed that “the States parties to the treaty should jointly carry out a detailed study of this question, so that during the third, concluding, stage the necessary measures could be taken in accordance with the United Nations Charter.” Such measures could include, the Soviet plan proposed, “an undertaking by States to make police (militia) units available to the Security Council, whenever necessary, in order to ensure the maintenance of peace.”

Such units would be "available solely for the purpose of maintaining peace between peoples, and not for the purpose of suppressing peoples fighting for independence and social progress or for the purpose of intervention in the internal affairs of States.”

The document said it was proposed that all disarmament measures. from beginning to end. should be carried out under strict international control.

“For that purpose,” it said, “the parties to the treaty would have to set up an international control organisation, whose jurisdiction would cover all measures carried out in the field of disarmament and would be enlarged as those measures became broader and more far-reaching in character.”

Observers here noted that hitherto. Soviet representatives have accused the West of laying undue emphasis on the need for controls, charging that this was being used as an excuse for delaying agreement on disarmament measures.

The Russians also hava previously played down the need for any sort of international police unit after the world’s swords have been beaten into ploughshares.