ATOM BAN TALKS

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

ATOM BAN TALKS

Surprise Move By Soviet

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 11 p.m.) GENEVA, June 3. The Western delegates to the three-Power nuclear test ban conference are today discussing their next moves as the. result of Russia’s sudden about-face on joining the agreed research programme into underground explosions.

The next meeting is schedul I for this afternoon, but observers felt that after yesterday’s dramatic turn of events, the three delegates might not hold their next session until next Wednesday. A four-day break would give the American and British delegates time to consult their Governments and to draw up a list of questions aimed at clarifying a situation which Western sources described as “considerably confused.” Western conference sources said the sudden change in policy

might be due to a Soviet desire to bring the whole question back to the political level of the main conference and to take it away from the expert level, where it might be possible to reach too much agreement. Yesterday’s surprise came when the Sovie. delegate. Mr Semyon Tsarapkin, suddenly announced that Russia would not be carrying out any kind of underground explosions, nuclear or otherwise, and that the West need not consider sending either scientists or special equipment to the Soviet Union. At the same time, the Soviet delegate declared that Russian scientists must have absolutely free access to all the proposed American underground nuclear explosions, including a minute examination of all the devices to be exploded.