AMERICAN ARSENAL

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30171, 1 July 1963, Page 11

AMERICAN ARSENAL

Production Cut Likely

(N.Z. Press Assn.—Copyright) NEW YORK, June 30 The United States Administration is considering cutting back substantially on the production of nuclear- weapons because the armed forces have more than enough to destroy the world and more weapons increase the danger of an accidental explosion, the “New York Times” said today. The report said that the cut would be the first since the United States started stockpiling atomic weapons after World War 11. “Behind the current study is a belief that the United States, with an arsenal of tens of thousands of atomic weapons, has a sufficient and perhaps excessive number of nuclear arms to meet its military needs,” it said. High Administration circles were concerned at the number of warheads delivered to the forces in the last five years.

Congressional Concern The joint Congressional Committee on Atomic Energy, which in the past has supported expanded production of nuclear weapons, was also beginning to be worried by the atomic abundance. A highly-placed Defence Department official said this week that the United States might cut 1*000.000,000 dollars from the Atomic Energy Commission’s 1.800,000,000dollar annual budget for weapons production, the New York “Times" said. According to Congressional sources, the Administration had been considering making a proposal at the high-level disarmament talks in Moscow in July that both sides shut down some of their weapons materials plants. Now that it had been disclosed that the United States was considering closing plutonium production reactors, the proposals had lost some of the bargaining and propaganda appeal. Discussion for Year The Defence Department statement revealed for the first time that the discussion of a possible cut back in nuclear weapons had been going on in secret for a year.

At a secret White House meeting on May 4, 1962. President Kennedy had ordered the Defence Department to cut its orders for nuclear warheads, particularly the small battlefield type, by several thousand. In terms of the cuts now being considered, the newspaper said, the President’s order was relatively small.