The Press TUESDAY, MARCH 21, 1961. Talks On Nuclear Test Ban

Press, Volume C, Issue 29468, 21 March 1961, Page 14

The Press TUESDAY, MARCH 21, 1961. Talks On Nuclear Test Ban

Today, when negotiations on a nuclear test ban will be resumed in Geneva, spokesmen for the new Democratic Administration of the United States will meet Mr Khrushchev’s representatives at their first major conference. It would be hard to exaggerate the importance of the occasion, for which the recent meeting between Mr Rusk and Mr Gromyko may have augured well. After two years and a half the negotiating Powers are tantalisingly close to agreement; yet the issues on which they remain split are fundamental to their rival concepts of an enduring peace. The future of all humanity, and not merely West or East, will be affected by what could prove the key manoeuvre towards general disarmament. Unquestionably the most compelling reason for hastening progress at Geneva is the knowledge that within a few years about 20 nations, including China, will be

capable of making their own nuclear weapons. Manufacture is becoming easier and cheaper, partly because of West German research. Irrespective of the responsibility shown by individual countries in the control of armaments, the danger of a holocaust, accidental or deliberate, is aggravated by every accession to the “ nuclear club and Russian and Western interests coincide in seeking to avert ultimate catastrophe.

Since the failure of the summit conference Russia has marked time in anticipation of a new President at the White House. The sincerity of Russian intentions will soon be tested in circumstances more

favourable to the Western allies than during the last ineffectual months of the Eisenhower Administration. Late in February Mr David Ormsby-Gore, the British Minister of State, visited Washington to concert nuclear policy with President Kennedy’s advisers. It appears probable that

Britain and the United States will now present an unwontedly united front in Geneva, largely because American official thought on nuclear problems is no longer divided. During Mr Eisenhower’s regime the advantages of a permanent test ban were doubted sufficiently in Washington to impair the effectiveness of the Geneva negotiations. Mr Kennedy and his Administration appear agreed upon the desirability of an agreement to end tests, even if enforcement procedures are imperfect. From this American readiness to tolerate risks, rather than ’ettisen all prospect of a treaty, come the reported

concessions about the annual quota of international inspections—the rock on which all earlier attempts at compromise have foundered. For months the United States’ moratorium on tests has drawn criticism from those who fear that Russia, by procrastination and

obstinacy at Geneva, has gained a tremendous tactical advantage over the West. Russia, the critics say, has obtained its desires: the voluntary suspension of American tests—including underground explosions, which are hard to detect — and freedom to continue its own activities undeterred by a cheat-proof inspection system. A test agreement will bind only the Powers represented at Geneva; but international policing of a ban would hamper seriously the development of atomic armaments in every country. Until many additional safeguards are provided, however, nobody will be completely secure from war. If the Geneva talks collapse, all other moves towards

disarmament may be frustrated, and President Kennedy will be presented with the most perplexing question of all: whether to resume nuclear tests, in the hope that Mr Khrushchev will see reason, or to refrain lest the world be hustled to its doom.