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Repeat London, Washington, NATO Paris, Paris (Information).
By Bag Moscow, Bonn, Oslo from London.
On April 29 the Security Council took up the USA proposal
concerning an Arctic inspection
zone. Also before the Council was a new Soviet draft resolution which
was the one of April 21
plus a paragraph bringing in the Summit Conference.
On a point of order Sobolev asked whether Lodge
intended to vacate the chair in accordance
with rule 20 of the provisional rules of the Council. A move of this kind
had been anticipated at a
meeting of the Western Four on the previous day. They had agreed that
Lodge should not repeat
not be driven out as a result of Soviet insinuations and other
members of the Council would in
effect give Lodge a vote of confidence. The representatives of UK, Panama and
France did just
this and Lodge stayed in the chair. Lodge introduced the USA proposal and drew attention to
Eisenhower's appeal to
Khrushchev to support this proposal. He stressed that the SAC flights
were a necessary defensive
measure but that if the danger of surprise attack were removed the `need for
this defence could
be correspondingly lessened'. He quoted supporting remarks from the
statements of other
members in the Council on April 21. He traced the history of the open
skies proposal and
effectively used statements by Khrushchev, Bulganin, and Gromyko
which indicated a positive if
vague reaction to proposals for inspection to guard against surprise
attack. Lodge made clear that the USA proposal was made
entirely apart from the general topic of
disarmament and stated that the USA was not repeat not attempting by this
move to bring the
subject of disarmament before the Council. He produced a map of the
proposed Arctic Zone.
(Copy sent to Ottawa by bag.) He informed the Council that
Denmark and Norway had agreed to
open their territory to the proposed system of inspection. He ended by saying
that The States
concerned must work out the actual inspection system, which means that the
final product must
be satisfactory to all of them. Lodge's statement was a model of restraint. His quotations
from statements of Soviet leaders
were selected to convey the impression that the proposal put forward
by the USA was not repeat
not incompatible with the stand taken by the USSR and that the USA hoped that
the scheme
would be treated as a genuine attempt to reach a first step on inspection
which might, in turn,
lead to the other steps necessary for a general disarmament agreement. By prearrangement Jarring of Sweden spoke next. You will
recall that he was silent during
the earlier debate on the Soviet item and his speech giving
support to the USA proposal was all
the more telling. After accepting the USA resolution Jarring expressed
preference for an
additional paragraph concerning the summit discussions. We have discussed
this in detail in a
separate telegram. In marked contrast to Lodge's statement Sobolev's statement
was harshly negative. He
repeated the charges about the provocative actions of SAC aircraft and
spoke of the USA
proposal as a diversionary manoeuvre. He complained about the
lopsided membership of the
proposed technical group and about the USA's continued reliance on an
arithmetical majority of
votes in the UN. He restated that in the Soviet government's view the
solution of international
questions, especially disarmament, could be found only at a summit
conference. He referred to
the disarmament proposals which the USSR had submitted for the agenda of
that conference.
The USA proposal had of course not repeat not come as a
surprise to Sobolev, so his attitude
must have reflected instructions from Moscow. Gromyko had the same day made a
toughly
negative statement for the press. A negative response from the USSR had not
repeat not been
ruled out as a possibility by the Western representatives here but these
flatly uncompromising
pronouncements were sharply in contrast to the general lines of the
Council debate. The text of our statement was sent to you
yesterday.99 It was followed by somewhat
colourless interventions by Georges-Picot and Dixon. In both these
statements there was a
tendency to regard the packaged proposals of last summer as the really
substantial position of the
West on disarmament. Matsudaira said that the USA proposal was limited,
but he welcomed it as a significant first
step towards disarmament. In commenting on the inspection zone, he
reserved the position of
his government on the status of the Kurile islands. The representatives of Panama, Iraq and China also
made statements in support of the USA
proposal. Tsiang was privately unhappy about the Swedish amendment and
expressed an oblique
reservation about it. Lodge then expressed his regret at the nature of
Sobolev's statement and
said We hope that the passage of a few days will result in a change
of mind.
Lodge's statement set the debate on a constructive
course which other members, except
Sobolev, followed with varying enthusiasm. This created a very
favourable impression on other
representatives in the Council chamber and presumably on the public
here and elsewhere. The
net result was a build-up of pressure on the USSR to reconsider its negative
stand. The Secretary
General's intervention has been assessed in a separate telegram. We believe that if the Western Powers can maintain
the momentum of the current trend in
the Council, the balance of advantage will be decidedly in their
favour. For this reason we have
been encouraging USA officials to continue the tone of restraint and
constructiveness which has
characterized USA statements so far. They should resist, in our view, the
temptation to score
relatively trivial propaganda points and to be overly exultant about the
response from other
Council members, in particular, of course, Sweden and Japan. At
this state it seems hard to
believe that the USSR will shift its stand to the extent of an abstention but
there is no repeat no
denying the USA contention that the stakes are high.
[C.S.A.] RITCHIE
99 Voir/See Department of
External Affairs, Statements and Speeches, 1958,
No.58/17.
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