State to be affixed and my name subscribed by the Authentication Officer of the said Department, at the city of Washington, in the District of Columbia, this eighth day of August, 1963. [SEAL] GEORGE W. BALL Acting Secretary of State By BARBARA HARTMAN [Released on July 25, 1963] AGREED COMMUNIQUE The special representatives of the President of the United States of America and of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, W. Averell Harriman, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs of the United States, and Lord Hailsham, Lord President of the Council and Minister of Science for the United Kingdom, visited Moscow together with their advisers on July 14. Mr. Harriman and Lord Hailsham were received by the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, N. S. Khrushchev, who presided on July 15 at the first of a series of meetings to discuss questions relating to the discontinuance of nuclear tests, and other questions of mutual interest. The discussions were continued from July 16 to July 25 with A. A. Gromyko, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. During these discussions each principal was assisted by his advisers. The discussions took place in a businesslike, cordial atmosphere. Agreement was reached on the text of a treaty banning nuclear weapons tests in the atmosphere, in outer space and under water. This text is being published separately and simultaneously with this communique. It was initialed on July 25 by A. A. Gromyko, Mr. Harriman and Lord Hailsham. Mr. Harriman and Lord Hailsham together with their advisers will leave Moscow shortly to report and bring back the initialed texts to their respective Governments. Signature of the treaty is expected to take place in the near future in Moscow. The heads of the three delegates agreed that the test ban treaty constituted an important first step toward the reduction of international tension and the strengthening of peace, and they look forward to further progress in this direction. The heads of the three delegations discussed the Soviet proposal relating to a pact of non-aggression between the participants in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the participants in the Warsaw Treaty. The three Governments have agreed fully to inform their respective allies in the two organizations concerning these talks and to consult with them about continuing discussions on this question with the purpose of achieving agreement satisfactory to all participants. A brief exchange of views also took place with regard to other measures, directed at a relaxation of tension. The CHAIRMAN. Before proceeding, I would like to make one personal observation. During the past week I have observed at firsthand Secretary Rusk representing and speaking for the President and the people of the United States of America. His conduct in the discussions with the highest representatives of the Soviet Union was in accordance with the best traditions of the office which he occupies. He demonstrated a remarkable mastery of the subject matter under consideration, an unusual skill in the presentation of his arguments. Not the least of his qualities was a physical endurance unmatched by anyone I have ever seen under comparable circumstances. In short, I was proud to have such an able and effective man representing my country, and was profoundly reassured by his conduct. I should also like to say that I believe our colleagues, Senators Sparkman, Humphrey, Pastore, Aiken, and Saltonstall contributed a great deal to the effectiveness of this mission in our discussions with representatives of the Government of the Soviet Union. Now, Mr. Secretary, I suggest that you may proceed in your own way. Senator HICKENLOOPER. Mr. Chairman. The CHAIRMAN. Senator Hickenlooper. PROCEDURAL DISCUSSION Senator HICKENLOOPER. I hate to interrupt the Secretary's statement, but I would like to raise a question at this time at the outset of these hearings. Does the chairman intend to put witnesses under oath in these hearings? I ask that question because there will be many witnesses testifying on divergent subjects of some detail. I don't suggest putting this witness under oath and the next witness not under oath or vice versa. I just wonder if a policy should be developed here. I would think that all witnesses should be under oath or none should be under oath. The CHAIRMAN. It is my opinion that in the past, under the circumstances of this kind, we have not put them under oath. However, I am perfectly willing if the committee sees fit to do so. Senator wish to suggest and to move that we do so? Does the Senator HICKENLOOPER. I was merely asking whether a policy had been determined as to committee practice or not. The CHAIRMAN. The practice, I believe, in the past has been not to put them under oath in the consideration of matters of this kind. I personally have no objection to do so if the Senator wishes. Senator HICKENLOOPER. I think that is a matter for the determination of the chairman and the committee. I am not asking necessarily that my wishes be acceded to completely. It is a matter for the Senators involved here. Senator MORSE. Mr. Chairman, all Government witnesses would be liable to perjury anyway and non-Government witnesses would not be. I move that non-Government witnesses be placed under oath. The CHAIRMAN. The motion is that all non-Government witnesses be placed under oath. Is there any discussion? Senator HICKENLOOPER. Yes; I am not thinking about perjury for anybody. I assume everybody is going to tell the facts about this. My point is, Mr. Chairman, if we are going to put anybody under oath let's put them all under oath. The CHAIRMAN. May I ask what the Senator from Iowa's wishes are? If he wishes that they be, it is perfectly agreeable to me and I don't think anybody would object Does the Senator wish they put all under oath? Senator MORSE. I modify my motion and move that all witnesses be put under oath. The CHAIRMAN. Without objection, it is so ordered. Do you solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God? Secretary RUSK. I do, sir. The CHAIRMAN. You may proceed, Mr. Secretary. STATEMENT OF HON. DEAN RUSK, SECRETARY OF STATE Secretary RUSK. Mr. Chairman and Senators, I very much appreciate the promptness with which the Senate is turning its attention to the matter before us. I do want to thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the remarks which you kindly addressed to me and should like to say it was a most invaluable thing for me and I think the Government of the United States to have you and other Members of the Senate with us on this trip. We appreciate that very much. I appear here this morning to support the treaty banning nuclear weapon tests in the atmosphere, in outer space, and underwater. Last week in Moscow the treaty was signed on behalf of the United States and the other original parties-the United Kingdom and the U.S.S.R. The Senate of the United States now has the constitutional responsibility to examine this treaty with care so that it may give the President its advice and, I earnestly hope, its consent to a prompt ratification. The President has given the treaty before you this morning an apt characterization. It is, he has said, "not the millenium *** but it is an important first step *** a step toward peace-a step toward reason a step away from war." Since 1789 the Senate has given its consent without reservation to the ratification of 943 treaties. I believe this may well prove, I say, it may well prove one of the most significant occasions for the exercise of that constitutional prerogative. I say "may" because it depends somewhat on how the future develops in regard to the possibilities of peace. HISTORY OF U.S. EFFORT AT NUCLEAR CONTROLS The United States, as the first nation to unleash the power of the atom, recognized from the beginning its awesome potentialities for good and evil. In the less than two decades since the first use of a nuclear weapon, the United States has worked continuously to achieve effective international controls so that the power of the atom might be committed to the improvement, rather than the destruction, of mankind. Disarmament, and the control of weapons, both nuclear and conventional, have been concerns of the highest priority for the three administrations that have borne responsibility for the great issues of peace and war during the atomic era. Less than a year after the explosions at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the United States presented its first comprehensive proposal for international control of the atom. As offered by Bernard Baruch at the first meeting of the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission on June 14, 1946, the plan called for the creation of an International Atomic Development Authority with responsibility for control of all atomic energy activities potentially dangerous to our security, with the power to control, inspect, and license all other atomic activities, and with the duty of fostering the beneficial uses of atomic energy. During the remainder of the Truman administration the United States continued to press these proposals in the United Nations and elsewhere. Though the great majority of the countries accepted the basic principles of the plan, the Soviet Union, unfortunately, did not. President Eisenhower was in office less than 3 months when he renewed the U.S. offer for "international control of atomic energy to promote its use for peaceful purposes only and to insure the prohibition of atomic weapons." Two years later at the summit meeting in Geneva he personally launched the "open skies" proposal. Throughout the ensuing years, no matter what the temperature of the cold war, the United States has pursued in every available forum its search for peach through effective and verified disarmament. These efforts disclosed a wide gap between the approach of this country and that of the Soviet Union to disarmament problems, mainly on the question of inspection and control. In the middle 1950's, therefore, the United States undertook to explore more limited measures. The most promising of these was control of nuclear weapons testing. There were good reasons for this. All mankind had what might even be described as an instinctive impulse to end the pollution of the air and earth that was a consequence of unrestricted testing. And, while arrangements banning bomb tests could not be wholly self-enforcing, the problem of detection and control seemed manageable. An agreement to stop testing or not to begin-would not strip a nation of its defenses or carry it too far into the unknown. Here, many felt, was a good point from which to start. The first Western proposal for control of nuclear tests was submitted to the Disarmament Subcommittee of the United Nations General Assembly on August 21, 1957. Sponsored by the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and France it called for a comprehensive 12-month ban on testing. This proposal, however, again encountered the reluctance of Communist States, with closed societies, to accept the international inspection and control required for effective enforcement of a comprehensive ban. On April 13, 1959, after months of inconclusive debate on this issue of inspection and control, President Eisenhower and Prime Minister Macmillan advanced a proposal for a ban on tests in the atmosphere up to an altitude of 50 kilometers. This proposal did not require on-site inspection since significant tests of this kind could be detected and identified by national systems. Even this, however, was not accepted by the Soviet Union. When the present administration assumed office, President Kennedy immediately undertook further explorations of the possibility of banning nuclear weapons tests. In 1961, President Kennedy, again with Prime Minister Macmillan, proposed a ban on tests in the atmosphere that would produce radioactive fallout. It was rejected by the U.S.S.R. The full text of a treaty embodying a ban on nuclear tests in the atmosphere, in outer space, and underwater, was tabled by the United States and United Kingdom delegations at Geneva on August 27, 1962. At the same time, they tabled the text of a comprehensive treaty which provided for on-site inspections for detecting and identifying underground tests. Before these texts were tabled there were consultations both with appropriate committees of Congress and with our allies and associates. For the past year, the text of a three-environment test ban has been before the world for comment and discussions. The treaty we have just signed in Moscow and which is now before you is based in its es 22-310-63 sential elements on the draft tabled in Geneva a year ago. Throughout this period, the concept has remained the same-to take a first step toward the control of nuclear weapons by prohibiting testing in those environments where our national systems are capable of detecting significant violations, leaving for subsequent steps the elimination of those tests that can be detected and identified only with an adequate system of inspection. REASON FOR CONCERN WITH DISARMAMENT Some may ask why three administrations representing both of our great political parties have devoted so much effort in attempting to make progress toward disarmament and, in particular, toward a ban on nuclear tests, when those same administrations were also building a nuclear arsenal of increasing and massive destructive power. The answer lies at the heart of the dilemma which troubles our world. The values that are the heritage of a free society have been menaced by a Communist bloc armed with the most modern weapons and intent on world domination. For our Nation this poses a special problem. We must, for our own security and as the leader of the free world, maintain a mastery of the most advanced weapons while technology moves forward at a breathtaking pace. At the same time, we must use all our resources of will and intellect in an effort to halt the burdensome and dangerous competition in weapons that is the somber characteristic of the present world situation. I recall the comment of a fellow officer in 1945 when we heard about the explosion of the first atom bomb. "War," he said, "has devoured itself." Today the United States has operational weapons in its arsenal hundreds of times as destructive as that first atom bomb. The Polaris and Minuteman missiles are armed with warheads tens of times as powerful. The Soviets also have weapons of great destructive power. The hard fact is that a full-scale nuclear exchange could erase all that man has built over the centuries. War has devoured itself because it can devour the world. If our Nation is to survive today, we must be able at all times in the absence of the far-reaching disarmament which still eludes us to endure a nuclear attack and deliver counter blows of vast devastation. As Secretary McNamara will make clear tomorrow, we have the ability to do so. We intend to keep it that way, lest others be tempted by ambition to adandon reason. Yet the facts must be faced. No one can realistically think of victory in a full-scale nuclear exchange. Last October during the Cuban crisis, men confronted decisions that might have moved to a nuclear war. That experience has been sobering for all. No responsible man will deny that we live in a world of vast and incalculable risks. Where decisions may be required in minutes, we must be constantly on guard against the accident or miscalculation that can lead where no one wants to go. A local conflict anywhere around the globe in which the interests of the great powers are engaged might suddenly pose the prospect of nuclear war. |