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America's First Terror War
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Today's Stories May 26, 2007 Michael Donnelly May 25, 2007 Robert Jensen David Vest John Stauber Evelyn Pringle Corporate Crime Reporter Susan Rosenthal,
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Edition In Retrospect and ProspectDisarmament NegotiationsBy N. D. JAYAPRAKASH
Ever since the end of the Second World War in 1945, there have been numerous attempts under the aegis of the United Nations Organisation (UN) to end the arms race and proceed towards disarmament. Egged on by the war-weary peoples of the world who clamoured for peace, the proclaimed aim of the UN became "general and complete disarmament". However, even sixty-two years later --far from attaining that admirable goal --not only has budgetary allocations for armaments, and concurrently the destructive power of weapons, increased manifold but also there has been no end to the outbreak of wars and the accompanying death, destruction and misery. Of course, there have been fleeting occasions when major breakthroughs in negotiations did take place and progress towards disarmament appeared imminent. To the utter dismay of the proponents of peace, counter moves by the armaments lobby have invariably thwarted all such possibilities. Since the pressure exerted by the global peace movement was so immense in the late 1950s and early 1960s for concrete action towards disarmament, the then two major ideological adversaries --the U.S. and the USSR --were forced to arrive at a significant agreement --the McCloy-Zorin Accord --on 20 September 1961. For the next two years, the world awaited eagerly for the signing of a comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty as the first step towards general and complete disarmament. The treaty that was finally signed in August 1963 with great euphoria by the U.S., the USSR and the U.K. was only a Partial Test Ban Treaty (PTBT), which banned nuclear tests in the atmosphere, underwater and in space while permitting underground ones. Although the PTBT may have been signed with good intentions, in order to allay fears of a nuclear conflagration in the background of the Cuban Missile crisis of October 1962, in effect the signing of the PTBT --instead of the much-awaited comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty --constituted a great betrayal of the peace movement. With the signing of the PTBT, the powerful global peace movement not only almost dissipated away but also the attention of whatever was left of it was focused on the Vietnam War and similar issues related to restoring peace rather than on tackling the question of disarmament. Seizing on the opportunity, the nuclear weapon states (NWS) made a radical departure away from the goal of general and complete disarmament and began to introduce what were termed as "pragmatic steps" or partial arms control measures. Treaties such as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), Nuclear Weapon Free Zone (NWFZ) treaties, the retrogressed Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), the Fissile Material Cut-off Treat (FMCT), etc., --while not hurting the interests of the nuclear weapon powers --gave the false impression that concrete action were being taken by the NWS to stem and reverse the nuclear arms race. The nuclear disarmament movement did resurrect in the late 1970s/early 1980s following the proposal made in 1977 to introduce enhanced radiation weapon (the neutron bomb) into the European theatre and the scare unleashed by utterances in the U.S. ruling circles of the possibility of waging "limited"/"winnable" nuclear war in Europe. However, by placing undue emphasis on benign treaties such as NPT, NWFZ, etc., the NWS have successfully managed to divert attention of peace activists away from the present nuclear danger to the probable nuclear danger in future. Potential nuclear weapon-capable states have since become the primary focus of attention of the "nuclear non-proliferation" campaign; clear and present danger held out by the NWS has been conveniently relegated to the background and has only of late, if at all, become part of the discourse, that too mostly in relation to the teeth-less Article VI of the NPT. "Non-proliferation"
has now become the catchword; the phrase "general and complete
disarmament" has disappeared from the vocabulary of the
dominant peace movement. (If at all any reference is made to
"general and complete disarmament", it is only in a
derogatory sense by being dismissive about it and by alleging
that it was "primarily designed to score propaganda points
rather than serve as any true basis for negotiations."
[1]). So drastic has been the adverse impact of the signing
of the PTBT in 1963 on the disarmament movement as a whole that
since then over two generations of peace activists are hardly
aware of the McCloy-Zorin Accord! Nor were the two separate proposals
for general and complete disarmament put forward by the USSR
and USA, on 15 March and 18 April 1962 respectively, ever an
integral part of the discourse of even the dominant peace movements!
These shocking facts testify to the level of disinformation that
the peace loving people across the world have been subjected
to since 1963. This analysis of the history of disarmament negotiations
is an attempt to understand the factors behind the failure of
the disarmament process till date so that it enables the peace
movement to draw appropriate lessons to pursue the same with
renewed vigour by avoiding the pitfalls of the past and surmounting
the likely hurdles in future. UN DEBATE It may be recalled that the purpose of founding the United Nations Organisation was to prevent aggression and war. The UN Charter was drawn up by the 46 Allied-nations (led by UK, USSR and USA) then at war with the Axis powers (led by Germany, Italy and Japan) and was adopted by them at the San Francisco Conference on 26 June 1945. USA became the first nation to join the UN after the U.S. Senate ratified the decision on 28 July 1945. The U.S. also became the first nation to blatantly violate the basic aim enshrined in the UN Charter, namely "to save succeeding generation from the scourge of war". Within nine days of joining the UN, the U.S. carried out its atomic bomb attack on Japan, a nation on the verge of surrender. This mindless act was a shattering blow to the high expectations of all war-weary peoples of a peaceful post-war world held out by the formation of the UN. Strange as it may seem, the UN General Assembly till date has never taken the U.S. to task for daring to violate the tenets of the UN Charter and committing that heinous crime. (In comparison, the magnitude of the crime that Saddam Hussein had supposedly committed and for which he was executed at the instance of the U.S. Administration, pales into insignificance.) Nevertheless, the first resolution of the first session of the UN General Assembly that was passed on 24 January 1946 was entitled "The Establishment of a Commission to Deal with the Problems Raised by the Discovery of Atomic Energy". The UNGA called upon the commission, named the UN Atomic Energy Commission (UNACE), to make specific proposals for "the elimination from national armaments of atomic weapons and of all other major weapons adaptable to mass destruction".[2] On 14 June 1946, Barnard Baruch introduced the U.S. Plan before the UNACE purportedly as per the UNGA guidelines. Five days later, on 19 June 1946, Andrei Gromyko introduced the Soviet Plan as a counter to the said U.S. Plan. Commenting on the two plans, Alva Myrdal, Sweden's Minister for Disarmament (1966-73) and one of the world's leading peace activists, later wrote:
According to McGeorge Bundy,
who was Special Assistant for National Security Affairs to Presidents
Kennedy and Johnson during 1961-1966 and head of the Ford Foundation
during 19661979: "the Soviet proposal calledfor a big
separate first stage: prohibition of use, production and possession
before there was any agreement on long-term control." [4]
However, the U.S. not only declined to destroy its stockpile
of nuclear weapons but also flatly refused to give an undertaking
that it would not use such weapons. "THE WINNING WEAPON" Recalling the U.S. reaction, Greg Herken, a U.S. historian --later also curator at the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum (Washington, D.C.) --observed as follows:
Gregg Herken had already noted that: "the Baruch plan did not differ in substance from an ultimatum the United States might have given Russia [USSR] to forswear nuclear weapons or be destroyed."[6] The Baruch Plan, in short, epitomized not only U.S. Administration's pernicious strategy for monopolizing the possession of nuclear weapons but also its insatiable craving for using them again. The resumption of nuclear weapon tests by the U.S. on 01 July 1946, just seventeen days after the submission of the Baruch Plan, spoke volumes about USA's real intentions. The enactment of the Atomic Energy Act by the U.S. Congress on 01 August 1946 did not leave room for any further doubts. The Act underlined not only "The significance of the atomic bomb for military purposes" but also about the necessity of "A program for Government control of production, ownership, and use of fissionable material to assure the common defense and security and to insure the broadest possible exploitation of the fields."[7] Nevertheless, discussions on the pros and cons of the Baruch and Gromyko Plans continued in the UNAEC well until July 1949, when talks completely broke down. Reports, which became subsequently available, show that while the Baruch and Gromyko Plans were being debated in the UNAEC: "Soviet targets were coded according to type --a city, a factory or an airfield and were then listed in the annually prepared Emergency War Plan. War Plan Broiler in 1947 called for 34 bombs to be dropped on 24 cities; war plan Trojan, one year later targeted 70 cities with 133 bombs, and war plan Offtackle, in 1949, called for 220 bombs on 104 cities with 72 weapons in reserve." [8] While negotiations were underway
for amicably settling the issue of control and peaceful uses
of nuclear energy, the U.S. had no inhibitions about secretly
preparing to wage nuclear war on the USSR, which would have destroyed
an entire nation and killed several million people! Publicly,
the U.S. and its allies also set up the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization (NATO) on 04 April 1949 as an aggressive military
alliance against the USSR. The U.S. was all the while confident
that it would retain monopoly of nuclear weapons at least for
the next several years if not decades. It seems incredible that
most other UN members then did not come forward to support USSR's
proposal for a convention to prohibit the use, production and
stockpiling of nuclear weapons and to declare the use of such
horrendous weapons as a crime against humanity as the first and
most important step that the UNAEC had to take. The intransigent
attitude of the U.S. and its allies and the fear of an impending
nuclear attack on it forced the USSR to neutralize the U.S. nuclear
advantage by making its own nuclear weapon, which was first tested
on 29 August 1949 and which became public knowledge on 23 September
1949. "SUPER BOMB" Peeved at the manner in which the USSR had neutralized the U.S. nuclear hegemony, the U.S. leadership was intent on regaining the advantage. On 31 January 1950, President Truman issued the order for building "super bombs", which were to be thousands of times more powerful than atomic bombs. (However, the U.S. leadership was so appalled by the fact that Dr. Robert Oppenheimer, popularly known as the father of the U.S. atom bomb and the then Chairperson of the General Advisory Committee of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, had dared to express his opposition to the proposal. He was subsequently suspended from his post in 1953 reportedly for harbouring "communist" sympathies! His security clearance was revoked in 1954 and was denied free access to the very atomic research laboratories he had built up. [9]) Thus, the onus of launching a full-scale nuclear arms race rests first and foremost with the U.S. leadership. It was left to organisations like the World Committee of Partisans for Peace (consisting of scientists, writers, artists and other intellectuals and later renamed World Peace Council), led by stalwarts such as Frederic Juliot Curie, J.D.Bernal, Pablo Picasso, Pablo Neruda and others, to launch the "Stockholm Appeal" in March 1950 demanding an absolute ban on nuclear weapons. While the "Stockholm Appeal" evoked enthusiastic support from reportedly about 500 million peace loving people across the world, that was seemingly not sufficient enough to curtail the nuclear arms race that had already been set in motion. In the meantime, on 13 February 1947, the UN Security Council had also set up a Commission for Conventional Armaments in order to regulate 'conventional' armaments and armed forces under an international system of control and inspection. This Commission's debates also ended in deadlock on 27 April 1950 on the question of membership of the Republic of China [Taiwan] on the Commission, which USSR had opposed. Since neither the UNAEC nor the Commission for Conventional Armaments had made any progress in tackling their respective tasks, the UN Security Council consolidated them into a single 11-member Disarmament Commission in January 1952 with the renewed hope that the issue of disarmament would receive the urgent attention it deserved. The Disarmament Commission "was to prepare proposals for the regulation, limitation, and balanced reduction of all armed forces and all armaments, nuclear and conventional alike, and it was to propose an effective system of international control of atomic energy to ensure that atomic energy would be used only for peaceful purposes." [10] However, the debates in the Disarmament Commission ended abruptly in October 1952. Soon afterwards, the U.S. carried out its first hydrogen bomb test on 01 November 1952. The USSR followed suit on 12 August 1953. Britain conducted its first atomic test on 03 October 1953. Meanwhile, another aggressive military alliance called ANZUS (Australia, New Zealand, USA) Treaty had also been set up in the South Pacific on 01 September 1951. The ascendancy of General Dwight Eisenhower, who was the Commander of the Allied Forces in Western Europe during the Second World War as the 34th President of the United States, appeared to bring about a refreshing change. It is interesting to note that soon after he had stepped into office, in a speech before the American Society of Newspaper Editors on 16 April 1953, President Eisenhower had said:
However, subsequent developments show that most of his cabinet colleagues did not share Eisenhower's optimism. Instead of slamming the brakes on the arms race, the U.S. reacted to USSR's hydrogen bomb test by introducing the "doctrine of massive retaliation". According to McGeorge Bundy: "The man who tried to put it together in public was [John Foster] Dulles. On January 12, 1954, the secretary of stateannounced the decision of NSC 162/2 in a form which became known inaccurately but indelibly as the doctrine of massive retaliation". Quoting Dulles, Bundy further added: "we needed to be ready to fight in the Arctic and in the Tropics; in Asia, the Near East, and in Europe; by sea, by land, and by air; with old weapons and with new weapons." [12] Dulles did not leave any room for doubts as to the dangerous direction in which the U.S. had decided to tread despite President Eisenhower's pronouncements to the contrary. Dulles and his camp followers soon raised an alarm about the non-existent "Bomber Gap". According to Michael R. Beschloss, an Adjunct Historian at the Smithsonian Institution (Washington, DC):
The truth was otherwise, as the staff of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has shown. In a note titled "Truth v. Reality", they have exposed the baseless allegations about the "Bomber Gap" with the following information:
NEHRU'S FUTILE APPEAL An integral part of the nuclear arms race was the periodic testing of nuclear weapons of various intensities in the atmosphere, underwater and underground. It did not take long before the world began to realize the high risks involved in spewing radioactive particles from the ongoing nuclear tests especially into the atmosphere and underwater. The growing menace of radioactive fallout from nuclear tests was exemplified by the 15-megaton atmospheric test conducted by the U.S. on 01 March 1954 over Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean. The widespread revulsion that the Bikini ("Bravo") Test had evoked also contributed to revitalizing the peace movement. Following the havoc caused by the radioactive fallout from the Bikini Test, it was Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, who was the first statesman to give a clarion call on 02 April 1954 before the Indian Parliament for immediate suspension of all nuclear weapon tests. Nehru had made the following proposals:
The USSR responded to Nehru's call by moving a draft resolution in the UNGA for convening an international convention on the reduction of armaments and the prohibition of atomic, hydrogen and other weapons of mass destruction (a resolution that was subsequently adopted by the UNGA as Resolution No.808 (IX) on 04 November 1954 [16]). However, the response of the Western states, from Canada's point of view, was as follows:
In, what was then a secret document, USA, UK and Canada had admitted that they had no hesitation in rejecting Nehru's proposals because "Western defence programme, which relies on the use of nuclear weapons" made it difficult for them "to support the suggestion of a ban on test explosions" Instead, in a bid to spread its global tentacles, the U.S. decided to set up another military alliance called the South East Asian Treaty Organization (SEATO) on 08 September 1954. The members of the alliance were Australia, France, New Zealand, Pakistan, the Philippines, Thailand, UK and USA. Significantly, Burma (now Myanmar), Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), India and Indonesia firmly rejected the offer to join the alliance. The U.S. went on to set up yet another military alliance called the Central Treaty Organization (CENTO) on 24 February 1955 with Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Turkey, and the UK. [USA de facto joined CENTO after the withdrawal of Iraq in 1958. Pakistan withdrew from both the alliance in 1973. SEATO was formally wound up in 1977 and CENTO too became defunct after the withdrawal of Iran in 1979.]
While USA, UK and Canada had scant respect for Nehru's test ban and other proposals, Nehru had persisted with his efforts at building peace. Talks between Nehru and the Chinese Premier Chou En-Lai were held in New Delhi and it ended in the signing of a joint statement on 28 June 1954 on the principles on which relations between India and China were to be based. These principles, which became subsequently known as the Five Principles of Peaceful Co-Existence or 'Panch Sheel', were: (1) mutual respect for each other's territorial integrity and sovereignty; (2) non-aggression; (3) non-interference in each other's internal affairs; (4) equality and mutual benefit; and (5) peaceful coexistence. The Panch Sheel principles were also the basis of positive neutrality, for the promotion of which the first Asian-African conference was organised at Bandung, Indonesia, from 18 to 24 April 1955. Positive neutrality consisted in non-participation in military blocs combined with active moves against the conclusion of imperialist military alliances, and in championing general and complete disarmament and abolition of colonialism. Also mediation in the settlement of international disputes for the purpose of easing international tensions; anti-colonialism manifesting itself in active support of all peoples fighting for independence and, once that has been gained, for complete elimination of the colonial aftermath; anti-racialism expressed in the demand for complete equality of races and the banning of discrimination of any people. While the Bandung Conference appeared to provide an opportunity to build solidarity of Asian and African countries, in reality that did not happen due to the acute struggle that took place there between the real non-aligned countries and those countries that were still under the tutelage and stranglehold of the imperialist powers. Yet, an important section of the Final Communiqué of the Bandung Conference was on "Promotion of World Peace and Co-operation" and it stated as follows:
The failure of the Bandung Conference to launch a permanent Asian-African nations organisation to carry forward its objectives was a sign that it was the writ of the imperialist powers that ultimately prevailed, although Nehru, Sukarno, Nasser, Nkrumah and others did make valiant attempts later to revive it in the form of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) in 1961.
Meanwhile, in 1953, the UN General Assembly (UNGA) had set up a sub-committee of the Disarmament Commission consisting of representatives of the Powers principally involved, namely Canada, France, the USSR, the UK, and the U.S., which held a number of meetings in the following two years. During meetings of the Sub-Committee of the Disarmament Commission at London from 25 February --18 May 1955, the USSR, on 10 May 1955, proposed a comprehensive plan for reduction of conventional forces and armaments, discontinuance of nuclear weapons tests and elimination of nuclear weapons. According to the summary report of the Canadian delegation at the talks:
As a result of the narrowing of the gap between the Western and Soviet positions, at the summit meeting of the leaders of USA, USSR, UK and France, which was held during 18-23 July 1955 at Geneva, there was a real possibility that an agreement would be reached on drawing up a comprehensive disarmament plan. However, a right-wing clique within the U.S. Administration --led by John Foster Dulles (the then U.S. Secretary of State) and Allen Dulles (the then Director of the CIA) --did everything they could to sabotage the possibility of arriving at any such agreement. In the words of McGeorge Bundy: "In essence what [John Foster] Dulles feared about proposals for disarmament in 1955 was simply that they might lead to agreement.he did not fear the nuclear arms race, because he had confidence the Russians could not keep up. What he feared much more was an agreement [on disarmament]"[20] Bundy's assessment candidly sums-up the attitude of the right-wing lobby in the U.S. on the issue of disarmament. The telegram sent by the Canadian High Commissioner in the UK to Canada's Secretary of State for External Affairs on 27 July 1955, provides further proof of the U.S. Administration's attitude towards disarmament. It says:
The 1955 Geneva summit meeting naturally failed to live up to its expectations. [A little known fact is that the wily brothers --John and Allen Dulles --were also instrumental in ousting Harold Stassen, chief U.S. disarmament negotiator, midway from the sub-committee meeting of the Disarmament Commission, which was being held in London from 18 March to 06 September 1957. John Dulles himself went on to occupy Stassen's place at the talks. Stassen's misdemeanor was that he was seriously pursuing the task that was assigned to him. However, his detractors quickly seized upon a procedural lapse on his part to undermine his position and to malign him. According to the Minnesota Historical Society: "Stassen's views regarding disarmament and negotiations with the Russians were strongly opposed by other members of Eisenhower's cabinet, particularly Secretary of State John Foster Dulles."[22] Stassen, who was nicknamed "Secretary of Peace", had been appointed as Special Assistant to the President for Disarmament in March 1955. After the London meeting ended in stalemate, he resigned from his post on 18 February 1958 to the delight of the anti-disarmament lobby.] Meanwhile, on 09 May 1955,
West Germany was inducted into NATO. It was a disturbing move
since for the first time the NATO bloc had a common border with
an ally of the USSR, East Germany. USSR, which had resisted the
formation of any military alliance till then (despite the existence
of four U.S.-led military alliances --NATO, ANZUS, SEATO &
CENTO) was left with no option but to counter the NATO decision
by signing the Warsaw Pact on 14 May 1955 to defend itself and
its allies against any preemptive attack. In the background of
the increasing tension between USA and USSR, Bertrand Russell
and Albert Einstein prepared a Manifesto with a view to warn
the peoples of the world about the disastrous effects of a nuclear
war and about the urgency of preventing any such misadventure.
The Manifesto, which was signed by nine other scientists, was
released in London on 09 July 1955. [23] The Manifesto, which had a profound influence on the peace movement, helped peace groups to arouse peoples' consciousness and organize mass movements for abolition of nuclear weapons across the world. The radiation effects of the 1954 "Bravo" test had already caused outrage in Japan. These factors led to the holding of the first World Conference against A & H Bombs in August 1955 in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, followed by the founding of the Japan Council Against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs (GENSUIKYO) in September 1955. Subsequently, India, which vociferously supported nuclear disarmament, placed yet another proposal on 12 July 1956 before the UN Disarmament Commission for 'Cessation of All Explosions of Nuclear and Other Weapons of Mass Destruction'. [24] At the request of Bertrand Russell, Nehru had also agreed to host a conference on science and world affairs in New Delhi in December 1956. However, due to India's preoccupation with the Suez Crisis (October 1956 - March 1957), the venue of the conference to promote disarmament and peace had to be shifted to Pugwash in Canada and was held there in July 1957. Consequently, that conference gave impetus to the Pugwash Movement or, what is now known as, the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs. That same year, the National Committee for A Sane Nuclear Policy (SANE) was established in the U.S. Soon after Britain had carried out its first hydrogen bomb test on 08 November 1957, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) came into existence in Britain. The primary focus of the peace movement then was to end nuclear weapon tests. The launching of the communication satellite "Sputnik" by the USSR on 04 October 1957, which symbolized the potential of peaceful uses of advanced science & technology, had also proved that the USSR had overtaken the U.S. in this area. This development, which was described by some journalists as the "shock of the century" [25], had a sobering impact on the aggressive stance of the U.S. The peace dividend from the successful "Sputnik" launch was almost immediate. Although the U.S. rejected yet another proposal for a moratorium on nuclear weapon testing, which the USSR had renewed in March 1958, at the end of April 1958, Eisenhower proposed an international conference of experts to study the problem of verification. According to the Federation of American Scientists:
Subsequently, the U.S., the UK, and the USSR agreed to a moratorium on nuclear weapon tests from 31 October 1958 onwards and began negotiations for a test ban treaty. The ongoing powerful worldwide campaign against nuclear weapon testing was an equally important factor that led to these developments. The moratorium on testing paved the way for establishment in 1959 of the Ten Nation Committee on Disarmament (TNCD), which formally remained outside the UN system. It comprised of five members each from the two military blocs --NATO and the Warsaw Pact --and was mandated to formulate measures leading to general and complete disarmament. The developments that took place in the UN General Assembly during the period when the moratorium was being adhered to were just as significant. In 1957, the UNGA had enlarged the Disarmament Commission from 11 to 25 nations; and by 1958, it was further expanded to include all members of the UN. The significant development that took place in 1959 was that two major plans for general and complete disarmament was submitted before the UNGA: one by the UK on 17 September 1959 and the other by the USSR on 18 September 1959. It was said that both the plans were not too dissimilar. Both plans not only sought to abolish the ability of all states to wage war but also sought to reduce all military forces and armaments to the requirement of internal security. In the debate that followed in the Assembly's Political and Security Committee, many proposals and suggestions were discussed virtually without acrimony or mutual recrimination.
Finally, on 20 November 1959, the UN General Assembly unanimously adopted Resolution No.1378 (XIV) without a formal vote, the first resolution ever to be sponsored by all member nations. The resolution on disarmament stated that the UN was "striving to put an end completely and forever to the armaments race," and that "the question of general and complete disarmament is the most important one facing the world today." [27] The resolution was transmitted to the Disarmament Commission and to the 10-Nation Disarmament Committee for thorough considerations. From the positive discussions that took place in the Disarmament Committee, a major initiative on disarmament was expected at the forthcoming Paris summit. According to McGeorge Bundy:
However, the infamous U-2 incident sabotaged the Paris Summit meeting between leaders of France, the UK, the U.S. and the USSR, which was scheduled to take place from 18 May 1960 onwards, and relations between the U.S. and the USSR seriously deteriorated. As a result, the work of the 10-Nation Disarmament Committee was disrupted and remained so for nearly a year. The U-2 incident appears to
have been stage-managed. On 01 May 1960, just two weeks ahead
of the proposed Paris Summit, a U.S. airplane (code-named U-2)
went on a photoreconnaissance mission over the USSR and was shot
down by a Soviet missile. There have been deep suspicions that
the Director of the CIA, Allen Dulles (without the company of
his brother, John Foster Dulles, who was now dead) and his ilk
had engineered the incident without the knowledge of President
Eisenhower to disrupt the Paris Summit, where a significant breakthrough
in the nuclear test ban negotiations was expected. (McGeorge
Bundy has pointed out this in his observations. See footnote
28) It may also have been intended to frustrate the proposed
visit of President Eisenhower soon after the Paris Summit to
the USSR, where he was expected to be given a tremendous welcome.
As commander of the Allied Forces in Western Europe during the
Second World War, General Eisenhower had enjoyed good rapport
with the military leadership of the USSR --many of whom were
still around.
U.S. President, John F. Kennedy, who had assumed office in January 1961, was elected to his post largely due to his ability to exploit fears of an alleged Soviet strategic superiority, which was dubbed as the "Missile-Gap." The "Missile-Gap" was yet another fraud that was vociferously perpetrated by the right-wing forces in the U.S. Administration to play upon the sentiments of the U.S. citizens in order to elicit their support for increased military spending, a demand that was being canvassed by interested parties. According to McGeorge Bundy:
President Eisenhower himself exposed the myth in his State of the Nation Message to the U.S. Congress on 12 January 1961 by pointing out that: "The 'bomber gap' of several years ago was always a fiction, and the 'missile gap' shows every sign of being the same."[30] The truth of the matter, as the staff of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has again shown in their note titled "Truth v. Reality" was that:
REVERSAL OF SOVIET POLICY Since the myth of the "missile gap" was perpetrated by the Kennedy administration to justify a massive military build-up, the USSR had real cause for concern leading to a panic reaction from its side, which resulted in its decision to break the existing moratorium on nuclear weapon testing and to increase its stockpile of nuclear weapons. At the same time, it is inexplicable as to why the Soviet leadership chose to ignore the apprehensions expressed by President Eisenhower, in his famous Farewell Address to the U.S. citizens on 17 January 1961, just three days before he laid down office. President Eisenhower had warned:
Eisenhower's grave apprehensions, which no other U.S. president has ever admitted to, turned out to be prophetic. The U.S. society has since been largely under the stranglehold of the military-industrial-complex. Instead of recognizing the significance of Eisenhower's observations and redoubling the USSR's persistent efforts to achieve general and complete disarmament, the Soviet leadership recklessly reversed their earlier policy and opted to compete with the U.S. military-industrial-complex in the mistaken belief that they can keep pace with them or even beat the U.S. at their own game. To the delight of the Soviet leadership, Yuri Gagarin's path-breaking space voyage on Vostok-I on 12 April 1961 turned out to be yet another milestone for Soviet science. The envious U.S. leadership's response to Gagarin's historic voyage was to launch a pathetic CIA-sponsored aerial bombing of Cuba on 14 April 1961 and destroying almost all of Cuba's aircrafts. This was followed by an amphibious counter-revolutionary attack on 17 April 1961 with a squad of 1500 Cuban exiles, which was crushed by the Cuban revolutionary forces in no time. (The then CIA Director, Allen Dulles, who had contrived the plot along with Vice President Richard Nixon, was forced to resign in September 1961 following the ignoble fiasco.) So overwhelmed were the Soviet leadership with the recent successes of the socialist system that they apparently lost their sense of direction. Instead of exploiting its successes in the field of scientific development for furthering the cause of peace, the USSR, which was until then in the forefront of the disarmament movement, suddenly seems to have been overtaken by an illusion that it was in a position to establish military superiority over the U.S. There is no other plausible explanation as to why the USSR took the deplorable decision to break the existing moratorium on nuclear weapon testing (which was being formally observed by the U.S., the USSR and Britain from 31 October 1958 onwards) by carrying out a series of atmospheric nuclear tests beginning 01 September 1961. (Recent information suggests that the U.S., in fact, had been conducting sub-critical nuclear weapon tests during this period of the moratorium.[33] It is also strange as to why the USSR chose to break the moratorium on 01 September 1961, which happened to the opening day of the well-publicized First Conference of the Non-Aligned Movement, a global movement that was launched by the third-world nations --one of the prime objectives of which was to oppose war and support global disarmament. Not only did the USSR break the moratorium, much to the relief of the U.S. Administration which itself was under tremendous pressure for doing so, but the USSR also went on, with much fanfare, to conduct on 31 September 1961 a mind-boggling atmospheric test of a 50-megaton hydrogen bomb nicknamed "Tsar Bomba" as though to poke fun at humanity. (In comparison, the biggest nuclear weapon test ever conducted by the U.S. --the "Bravo" test --had an explosive power of 15-megaton TNT.) The shocking conduct of the Soviet leadership was highly appalling. This was despite the fact that there was opposition within the scientific community in the USSR against breaking the existing moratorium on nuclear tests. Dr.Andrei Sakharov, known as the father of the Soviet hydrogen bomb, had expressed his strong opposition to the resumption of nuclear tests, especially atmospheric ones. Sakharov was completely dejected after the Soviet leadership chose to dismiss his views summarily. It did not take long before the highly decorated Soviet scientist fell foul with the Soviet establishment.
The decision of the Soviet leadership to break the moratorium was all the more inexplicable since talks between the U.S. and the USSR had already restarted on 31 March 1961 for working out a framework of Agreed Principles for General and Complete Disarmament. The framework, known as the McCloy-Zorin Accord --named after its authors John I. McCloy of the U.S. and Valerian A. Zorin of the USSR --was submitted before the UN General Assembly on 20 September 1961. [34] In an apparent reversal of roles, the United States, for the first time ever, now took the initiative in championing the cause of general and complete disarmament. In an address to the UN General Assembly on 25 September 1961, President Kennedy presented the "United States Program for General and Complete Disarmament in a Peaceful World".[35] Kennedy's presentation was subsequently published by the U.S. Department of State under the title "Freedom From War".[36] The McCloy-Zorin Accord, which is considered a high point in disarmament efforts during the Cold War, set forth eight principles. The preamble of the Accord states that: "The United States and the USSR have agreed to recommend the following principles as the basis for future multilateral negotiations on disarmament and to call upon other States to cooperate in reaching early agreement on general and complete disarmament in a peaceful world in accordance with these principles." [37] On 20 December 1961, through Resolution No.1722 (XVI) [38], the UNGA unanimously adopted the McCloy-Zorin principles, which was to serve as the basic terms of reference for all subsequent discussions on general and complete disarmament. On 20 December 1961, the UNGA had also decided to expand the 10-Nation Disarmament Committee, which was beset with irresolvable differences a year earlier, by including eight non-aligned nations (including India) with a view to bridging the gap between the NATO and Warsaw Pact factions of the Committee. The research note titled "United Nations - General and Complete Disarmament", which was prepared for the Parliament Library of the Parliament of Australia, gives an overview of the debate on general and complete disarmament during that crucial period. It is as follows:
In short, where there was no will, there was no way of implementing the McCloy-Zorin principles! The submission made by the United States before the ENCD was a more precise elaboration of the proposals that President Kennedy had placed before the UN General Assembly on 25 September 1961. The McCloy-Zorin Accord and the two proposals put forward by USSR and USA in 1962 had remained the only sensible proposals on general and complete disarmament until Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi tabled India's 'Action Plan for a Nuclear Weapon Free and Non-Violent World Order' at the Third Special Session of the UN General Assembly on disarmament in 1988. The radical shift from the objective of general and complete disarmament to, what were being termed as, the more "pragmatic steps" began with the signing of the PTBT in 1963. As noted in the above para, from the viewpoint of the so-called pragmatists, the PTBT, the NPT and the CTBT were "specific short-term objectives, which could be agreed relatively easily and incorporated into legal instruments"! Experience has proved that these "short-term objectives", instead of contributin |
