INTELLIGENCE MEMORANDUM
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Collection:
Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST):
0005284697
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RIFPUB
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U
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9
Document Creation Date:
June 22, 2015
Document Release Date:
December 15, 2008
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Case Number:
F-2008-00942
Publication Date:
February 28, 1967
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DIRECTORATE OF
INTELLIGENCE
Intelligence Memorandum
STATUS OF THE NONPROLIFERATION TREATY NEGOTIATIONS
Secret
APPROVED FOR RELEASE DATE:
09-24-2008 235
28 February 1967
No. 0796/67
SECRET
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CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
Directorate of Intelligence
28 February 1967
INTELLIGENCE MEMORANDUM
Status of the Nonproliferation Treaty Negotiations
1. The Eighteen Nation Disarmament Committee
(ENDC) resumed its sessions in Geneva on 21 February
still facing serious difficulties in reaching agree-
ment on a treaty to curb the spread of nuclear weap-
ons. At present,tthe ENDC is proceeding with a gen-
eral debate while awaiting submission of the draft
nonproliferation treaty (NPT) by the co-.chairmen of
the ENDC --the USSR and the US. The US wanted to
submit the draft formulations at the opening ENDC
session but the USSR refused on grounds that an
agreed complete draft text was not available for
high-level consideration in Moscow. The major miss..?
ing article is the provision for international safe-
guards. Since mid-February, the Soviets have
shifted their position and say they are now willing
to submit a draft to the ENDC-zpresumably:y.gvenFwith-
out the safeguards:art_ic1 c?after they have consulted
with their allies and following agreement on the text
by the US and USSR. However, the US delegation in
Geneva now estimates it may be several weeks before
a draft can be presented to the ENDC. This would
allow those Western and nonaligned countries which
have reservations about the treaty additional time
to concert their views and tO obtain further cdn-
cessions.
2. In an effort to prevent this, the US dele-
gation is giving oral briefings on the treaty formu-
lations to the eight nonaligned members of the ENDC.
NO This memorandum was produced solely by CIA.
It was prepared by the Office of Current
Intelligence and coordinated with the Office
of National Estimates.
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The US is explaining to the nonaligned that the pre-
amble to the treaty would include assurances that
the benefits of peaceful applications of nuclear
technology would be available to all parties. Nu-
clear explosives for peaceful uses would likewise
be available on a nondiscriminatory basis through
appropriate international procedures. Whether this
will overcome the prevailing skepticism among the
nonaligned is difficult to say. Although they all
favor a nonproliferation treaty as such, they will
be very persistent not only in trying to obtain
guarantees of the continued availability of atomic
energy for peaceful uses for all parties, but also
in pressing the nuclear powers to undertake dis-
armament measures and to provide security guarantees
to nonnuclear states threatened by "nuclear black-
mail."
3. A major stumbling block remains the pro-
jected article on safeguards which has become a
source of serious friction within the Western alli-
ance. Particularly among the EURATOM countries,
opposition continues to grow to acceptance of Inter-
national Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards as
a part of the draft treaty. In West Germany, the
press has from the beginning insisted that the safe-
guards provision would be "grossly discriminating"
against EURATOM members. Germany's ambassador to
NATO has on several recent occasions stated that
the provision is not only incompatible with EURATOM,
but with the EEC as well. Similar objections have
been voiced in Italy, and within the past few days,
official opinion in the Benelux countries--which
had been favorable toward the nonproliferation
treaty--has taken a distinctly more skeptical trend.
4. The situation within EURATOM, however, is
a very complicated one. France, which has no in-
tention of signing the NPT and which as a nuclear
power would not be subject to IAEA inspection even
if it did, has come out strongly against parallel
or joint IAEA-EURATOM safeguards controls within the
EURATOM area. The French argue that the IAEA pres-
ence would jeopardize cooperative research projects
and ultimately call into question the existence of
EURATOM itself. Moreover, posing as EURATOM's
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"protector," the French also charge that the US is
"discriminating" against the community and is "pre-
pared to sell EURATOM's safeguards system down the
river." While these arguments have the effect of
stirring up a kind of nationalistic fervor for the
community among the other members, they also have
had the effect of making them painfully 'aware of the
preferred position France would have within the com-
munity under the NPT. Thus, for example, Italian
Premier Moro is said to be convinced that if the
treaty were signed in its present form, De Gaulle
and his successors would be given a strong motiva-
tion for preventing any further moves toward po-
litical or military unity among the EEC countries.
5. Italy and the Benelux countries also fear
that the safeguards question could become another
obstacle to Britain's accession to the Common Market.
A senior Italian Foreign Ministry official told the
US Embassy in Rome last week that conclusion of the
treaty in its present form would so confirm France's
dominant position that it "would never let the UK
into the community." The Dutch are likewise said
to fear that Paris has been maneuvering to be able
to claim that London has showed "too little concern
for European integration" in its support of the
treaty. The British press has in fact taken notice
of the difficulties within EURATOM and the delicate
situation in which':the UK has been placed. In a
recent aide-memoire to the US, London said it fully
supported an effective safeguards provision in the
treaty, but added that since some EURATOM countries
considered the provision discriminatory, Britain
would have to "comment on this aspect of the ques-
tion with caution."
6. These crosscurrents were particularly evi-
dent at the 16 February meeting of EURATOM's perma-
nent representatives. The Germans offered two
counterproposals for consideration: (1) a safe-
guards provision which would include an option
covering EURATOM with the understanding that nego-
tiations with IAEA would follow; or (2) a treaty
with no safeguards provision. The first alternative
obviously derives from a proposal offered by Germany
last fall for a formal agreement between EURATOM
and.the IAEA--providing for various exchange
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arrangements. (It would probably take a long time
to work out such an agreement, and even then it
might not be acceptable to the USSR.) The French,
however, refused to allow consideration of the gen-
eral German proposition that the NPT and safeguards
issue be discussed and decided on a community basis.
Although he reiterated that Paris did not intend to
sign the treaty, the French representative pointedly
advised his colleagues that while France considered
the question of signing to be a sovereign national
decision to be made by each country, France also ex-
pected each EURATOM member to "Weigh most carefully"
the implications for the future of EURATOM, the EEC,
and European unity.
7. In any case, the problems of some of the
Western allies go far beyond the safeguards ques-
tion. The West Germans continue officially to sup-
port the treaty in principle. They maintain, how-
ever, that it should be linked to general disarma-
ment, that civil uses of nuclear energy must not be
hindered, and that Bonn must receive binding inter-
pretations of certain other provisions of the draft
treaty. Although the opposition to the treaty con-
tinues to focus on the effect it might have on Ger-
man scientific and technological advancement, these
objections in a number of instances seem little more
than a cover masking some leaders' opposition to
the treaty for largely political reasons. Influen-
tial nationalist elements in the CDU/CSU, for ex-
ample, maintain that the US and the USSR are dealing
over the heads of the European powers. They main
taro that the treaty is in the nature of a "diktat"
which will be imposed on Bonn and which would com-
pel acceptance of restraints incompatible with West
Germany's status as a sovereign state.
8. Chancellor Kiesinger and Foreign Minister
Brandt have had some success in calming public
opinion, and a number of newspapers have called
for a halt to the "wild, emotional and dangerous"
controversy on grounds that it threatens both the
prestige of the government and the credibility of
German policy. Nevertheless, much of the press,
and many politicians in the CDU/CSU, like Strauss,
Adenauer, Guttenberg, and Zimmerman, have publicly
declared their opposition to the treaty in its
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present form. Probably even more worrisome to
Kiesinger is the concern expressed by respected
figures such as Minister of Scientific Research
Stoltenberg, Bundestag deputy Birrenbach, and the
physicist, Professor Weizsaecker. German officials
have meanwhile approached the US with proposals
which are intended to meet their basic objections
to the NPT. These proposals specifically call for
an agreement with the US on "binding interpretations"
on well-known key issues,
9. The debate over the NPT could possibly
cause strains in the grand coalition sufficiently
seriou.s.to jeopardize the Kiesinger government. The
US Embassy in Bonn notes that while the NPT contro-
versy is still essentially a foreign policy issue
it could turn into a major internal problem for
Kiesinger. Moderates on this issue within the CDU/
CSU are thus pinning their hopes on obtaining from
the US textual changes or the proposed binding in-
terpretations which would lessen opposition to the
treaty, The Embassy estimates that there are about
70 CDU/CSU deputies (out of 245) who are intrinsi-
cally Opposed.to the treaty and will vote against
it come what may in the way of changes, because they
consider a negative vote good politics. If other
"troubled and undecided" CDU/CSU members should join
this hard-core opposition, Kiesinger would face a
serious dilemma. As a CDU chancellor he could
hardly contemplate a vote in which his principal
support would come from the SPD with a majority of
his own party in opposition.
10. Italy's attitude toward the NPT draft also
continues to be negative, and there is as yet no
sign that Rome is preparing to modify its basic
objections. At a 21 February meeting of the West-
ern Four of the ENDC, Rome's representative re-
iterated the Italian reservations already expressed
in NATO. His major points were that the treaty
should clearly specify that a future European de-
fense community would have access to nuclear weap-
ons and that safeguards should apply to nuclear as
well as nonnuclear countries, with EURATOM being
delegated inspection functions by the IAEA. He
also pointed out that Italian adherence would have
to be conditioned on that of certain other countries.
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While this reference presumably reflects Italian
fears that nonsignatories in the Mediterranean area
might pose an eventual threat to Italy, it is more
likely that Italy's decision will be contingent on
Germany's position. The Italian representative's
position at the Western Four session was given prior
approval by Italy's Supreme Defense Council--which
includes the most important officials in the govern-
ment--and the government is now preparing proposed
amendments to the treaty draft.
11. The Japanese, who continue to be in contact
with the Germans and the Italians, also retain their
reservations about the treaty. Prime Minister Sato
in a recent press conference expressed support for
the treaty but indicated that the nuclear powers
should pay attention to the interests of the non
nuclear-weapon states. Other Japanese officials
have questioned whether the restrictions the treaty
would impose are sufficiently nondiscriminatory,
and whether enough consideration has been given to
the security problems of the nonnuclear states. The
Tokyo press has expressed fears that the first two
articles of the US draft are so brief as to leave
"loopholes for farfetched interpretations." Jap-
anese newspapers have also played up the widening
gap between nuclear and nonnuclear nations in the
areas of nuclear technology and security which might
allegedly result from the treaty, and argued that
the only way to ensure world security would be to
close the gap gradually through nuclear arms re-
duction by nuclear powers.
12. In India the Secretary to the Prime Min-
ister has told the US Embassy that if the new In-
dian Government agrees to sign the nonproliferation
treaty ?t will be open to a barrage of attacks from
the greatly strengthened opposition in parliament as
well as from the members of the Congress Party. He
said New Delhi's- concern centered on what it be-
lieves`:to be the one-sided nature of. the draft
treaty which is in effect asking the nonnuclears to
give up their right to develop nuclear weapons while
asking the nuclear powers to give up nothing. Further-
more, the development of the Chinese nuclear weapons
program, plus the evidence that Peking is moving into
.the missile business, increases India's sense of in-
security,
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13. What impact this chorus of objections might
ultimately have on Moscow's attitude toward the
treaty is anybody's guess. Soviet negotiator Roshchin
in his recent talks with Ambassador Foster at Geneva
has seemed eager for the US and the USSR to come to
some agreement on a complete text, apparently in the
belief that this would weaken the opposition. On the
safeguards issue, the Russians have made it clear that
they would be willing to drop the issue or accept
other compromise language as long as it did not en-
tail Soviet recognition of EURATOM and did not sub-
ject Eastern Europe to IAEA safeguards before it sub-
jected the EURATOM community to them. On the other
hand, the Russians have also made it clear that there
are limits on how far the US might go in meeting the
desires of its allies without losing Soviet support
of the treaty and that it was for the US, in effect,
to elicit the agreement of its allies. For example,
a member of the Soviet delegation in Geneva has said
that if confronted with any public US statement that
the NPT would permit an eventua ederated European
state to have nuclear weapons, Moscow would have to
reject it. The delegate added that Soviet opinion
would interpret such a statement as permitting Ger-
man "access" to nuclear weapons, and that this would
jeopardize all the laborious progress of the last
six months.
14. Thus, while the nonproliferation treaty
commanded broad world support so long as it was a
more-or-less remote prospect, its emergence as a
close-at-hand reality has brought to the surface
difficulties heretofore submerged. In Western
Europe; it has been caught up in the problems of
European integration and in the struggle for pre-
dominant influence among France, Britain, and West
Germany within the developing European community
organization. For some Europeans, the US attitude
toward the safeguards question has seemed to cut
across two decades of strong US support for European
unification, and for still other Europeans, the se-
cret.negotiations between Moscow and Washington
which paved the way for the present advance toward
an agreement have raised the old bogey of the USSR
and the US "dealing over the heads of the Europeans."
For some West Germans, the treaty has seemed to
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carry the world closer to the postwar settlement in
Europe--a settlement which would leave Germany in a
permanently subordinate position. For the world at
large, the prospect of the treaty has given new cur-
rency to the idea that the super nuclear powers are
trying to solidify their world position--a position
which would give them not only military predominance,
but also the technological superiority which many of
the' nonnuclear countries still believe is the by-
product of a nuclear weapons program. Answers to
most;d.f not all of these concerns can probably be
found, but this will probably require concessions
and specific programs to deal with the views of the
"have-nots"--not just assurances that their interests
are not being overlooked--and even then, the bruised
sensitivities may last a very long time.
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