Índice de Vegetación Diferencial Normalizado

While we are rather willing and even eager and relieved to agree with a historian’s finding that we stumbled into the more shameful events of history, such as war, we are correspondingly unwilling to concede—in fact we find it intolerable to imagine—that our more lofty achievements, such as economic, social or political progress, could have come about by stumbling rather than through careful planning. … Language itself conspires toward this sort of asymmetry: we fall into error, but do not usually speak of falling into truth.

Albert O. Hirschman, “The Principle of the Hidden Hand,” 1967

Introduction: An Approximation of Peace

Director of the United States Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA) William Foster stood at the lectern before the World Council of Churches on June 15, 1964 and conjured the words and figure of the Protestant theologian and philosopher Reinhold Niebuhr to explain his job. “In his famous Gifford lectures at Edinburgh in 1939,” Foster related, Niebuhr had expressed his belief that “[t]he task of creating community and avoiding anarchy is constantly pitched on broader and broader levels.” “That continues to be true in 1964,” he noted, “to an ever-increasing degree.” The two groups represented that day, he averred, the spiritual community and the nation-state, were both in the business of meeting this expanding challenge:

We who represent the State are charged with … avoiding anarchy as we attempt to turn the world back from what could be a fatal arms race. You who represent the Church are charged, as the church has always been charged, with the task of creating community. I think the mere fact that we, who have such interrelated and vital tasks set before us, are meeting together today, bodes well for the future of mankind.64

Foster described his mission in terms of Niebuhr’s conception of an “impossible possibility,” and the perpetual quest to attain “a tolerable approximation of this ethic in the form of justice.” While Niebuhr had spoken to the quixotic pursuit of an ideal

64 _{William Foster, Draft, “Possible Remarks for World Council,” 15 June 1964, William C. Foster Papers,}

Christian life, Foster found that his admonition spoke equally to “the field of disarmament” where “we might think of our ultimate goal of GCD [general and complete disarmament] as a difficult – yet – possible possibility.” The final object might lie beyond the horizon of sight, and perhaps the lifetimes of those present, but “the negotiating table” and “the various collateral measures,” such as a fissile material cutoff treaty (FMCT), a comprehensive test ban treaty (CTBT) and a nuclear nonproliferation treaty (NPT) represented “more readily achievable approximations which will hopefully pave the way for the goal of GCD.65

This chapter addresses the simultaneous U.S. pursuit of the MLF in NATO and the NPT. Was a nonproliferation treaty achievable in 1963 or 1964 and, if so, what factors affected its chances of success? Relatedly, why did United States policy give priority to the MLF despite the non-negotiable opposition of Eastern bloc leaders and the tepid support of NATO allies besides West Germany? Lastly, would a nonproliferation treaty have garnered broad international support before or after the Chinese nuclear test in late 1964, in particular from those states most likely to proliferate—the F.R.G., India, and Israel? Soviet-American agreement on the non-dissemination and non-acquisition articles existed, but was stymied by the rebelliousness of East European states amid the Sino-Soviet split, the Euro-centrism of the U.S. State Department (which consistently preferred the MLF to the NPT), the ad-hoc nature of U.S. nonproliferation policy and grand strategy more generally and the onset of election seasons in the U.K. and, more decisively, in the U.S.

There was a window of opportunity in early 1964 to stop nuclear aspirants, particularly India, from moving closer to a military nuclear program with major

implications for international security, proliferation trends, and the final text of the nonproliferation treaty. To support these claims, this chapter begins with an institutional history of the U.S. Disarmament Agency, placing it in the context of a nuclear paradigm of security internationalism coalescing around 1963 in which nuclear deterrence and arms control were deemed the chosen means of averting nuclear anarchy. Next, the interrelated history of American nuclear diplomacy, U.S.-F.R.G. and U.S.-Indian relations, Warsaw Pact politics and Eighteen Nation Committee on Disarmament sessions in 1964 are discussed. The chapter concludes with a brief account of the explosion of a nuclear device on October 16, 1964 at the Lop Nur testing grounds in the Tarim Basin of the Xinjiang region in People’s Republic of China’s, including the U.S. effort to prevent it by means of a preemptive strike sanctioned by the U.S.S.R. as well as the Indian and world reactions to the event.

The tenability of Soviet-American strategic stability through nuclear deterrence seemed to require a halt to the spread of nuclear weapons. In a 1965 article for Foreign Affairs, titled “New Directions in Arms Control and Disarmament,” Foster focused on the proliferation challenge after noting Moscow and Washington’s “real progress” on the White House-Kremlin hotline, outer space treaty, fissile material cutbacks and, most notably, the Limited Test Ban Treaty (LTBT). On the other hand, there was “an increasingly realistic appreciation that agreement on [GCD] will not be achieved early enough … to control the atom.”66 _{Other means were needed to govern nuclear anarchy.}

Soviet-American relations had improved since the crisis in Cuba and, though superpower brinksmanship no longer seemed an impending threat, the “time factor” on proliferation was more urgent:

66 _{William C. Foster, “New Directions in Arms Control and Disarmament,” Foreign Affairs 43, no. 4 (July}

For a decade and a half the Soviet Union has had nuclear weapons; hence the prospect of a delay of, say, a year or two in reducing the capabilities of the Soviet Union and the United States to damage each other may not seem terribly critical in itself. But a delay of a year or so, or perhaps even of months, in the

implementation of measures bearing on the nuclear-proliferation problem could well mean the difference between failure and success.67

Foster’s call for urgency in 1965 alluded to the failure to head off China’s nuclear blast in October 1964 and the looming threat of an Indian response. The implication was clear. While the Soviet-American nuclear standoff was stable, the spread of nuclear weapons to other regions, including those as volatile as South and East Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America posed significant risks. After acknowledging the case for “limited proliferation” beyond Europe (most likely to India or Japan), he rebutted it on two counts as “implausible and inconsistent with the attitude we have taken with respect to Europe:” proliferation could not be controlled and the U.S. with its “world-wide commitments” would be unavoidably entangled in “any conflict on a scale where nuclear capabilities would be significant.”68 _{The modernist assumption that states were chiefly defined by}

their material capabilities skewed his thinking with regard to how non-European leaders’ would see nuclear risks. The likelihood of nuclear-weapons use would “almost certainly increase as the number of fingers on the trigger increases,” even more so because underdeveloped states like Communist China would have “relatively little to lose.” Any nuclear-weapons use meanwhile risked global total war:

Of course, the use of a few nuclear weapons by any power—even of one such weapon and even with an intent to localize the effect—might lead to their use in large numbers by other powers, with cataclysmic consequences.69

The extrapolation from local use to global cataclysm was paradigmatic of the emerging nuclear orthodoxy. Foster inferred that the limits of strategic stability and U.S.

67 _{Ibid., 589.} 68 _{Ibid., 590.} 69 _{Ibid., 591.}

commitments in hot spots accordingly demanded the securitization of peace. The implications were counterintuitive. Disarmament would increase the chances of war. Soviet-American brinksmanship would guarantee the peace. Even so, the Cold War strategy of containment against the U.S.S.R. now called for a supplemental strategy of global nuclear containment to resolve the explosive contradiction of a catalytic nuclear war. Foster and the U.S. Disarmament Agency would act as the institutional fulcrum of that strategy through a program of security internationalism—strategic stability through deterrence, arms control, and nonproliferation.

“A Bureaucratically Independent Conscience”

The character of William Foster has remained outside the limelight of NPT history in spite of the pivotal role he played in its negotiation. As a result, his personal importance as an ambassador of and driving force behind the treaty has been eclipsed. Bill, as friends, colleagues and politicos called the ACDA’s first and longest-serving director, transformed the fledgling agency from the custodian of a “third rail” of US foreign policy into an interdepartmental and international clearinghouse whose activism was instrumental in bringing about the LTBT and NPT.70 _{President John F. Kennedy}

pinched the idea of an arms control agency from his rival for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1960, Hubert Humphrey, whose campaign pledge itself built on steps made by Eisenhower’s secretary of state, Christian Herter, to foster “continuity and depth

70 _{Lamentably, the ACDA papers housed at the U.S. National Archives have yet to be declassified,}

organized, and opened for researchers. As a result, the critical intermediary role played by the ACDA and its director have been lost, resulting in a sense that a nonproliferation treaty was always treated as a corollary of the MLF since Foster and the ACDA were the primary holders of the nonproliferation portfolio. An important exception to the general rule is Bunn, Arms Control by Committee.

in the review, development, and negotiation of policy” relating to arms control by formalizing the practice.71

The proposed agency cried out for an enterprising stepfather. The Disarmament Agency elicited support or skepticism depending on whether the individual was wedded or antagonistic to the notion that conflict among nations and people was governable.72

Foster was named director in September 1961 when Kennedy signed the inaugural statute and would stay on in that capacity until 1969. He was a businessman with considerable experience in transatlantic diplomacy, a keen sense of civic duty, a sharp eye for public relations, and a reputation as a tireless operator and respected manager. However, he was also an organization man whose insistence on clear channels of communication, decision-making and review disenchanted some experienced nuclear diplomats.73 _{Born on April 18, 1897 in Westfield, New Jersey, Foster studied at MIT}

before serving as a pilot in the US Air Corps in the First World War. After the war ended, he found a job as an engineer for the Packard Motor Company and for Public Service, a New Jersey utility. During the Second World War, Foster joined the government as a consultant for the War Production Board where he rose to the rank of Special Representative to the Secretary of War on aircraft procurement before serving as Undersecretary of Commerce from 1946 to 1948. When Roosevelt’s Secretary of State George C. Marshall needed a deputy to help implement the Marshall Plan, he called on Foster to perform the duties of Deputy Special Representative in Europe and,

71 _{Edmund A. Gullion, Acting Deputy Director, Memorandum for the Kennedy Administration, “United}

States Arms Control Administration,” Department and Agencies, Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, President’s Office Files, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, http://www.jfklibrary.org/Asset-

Viewer/Archives/JFKPOF-069-016.aspx. Hereinafter POF, JFKL.

72 _{Duncan L. Clarke, Politics of Arms Control: The Role and Effectiveness of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament}

Agency (New York: Free Press, 1979).

subsequently, Administrator of the Economic Cooperation Administration itself.74 _Foster

also acquired a firm basis in the economics of atomic energy while working for the Nuclear Utilities Corporation. He thus brought a wealth of contacts and experience to his position as Disarmament Agency director.

A key question was how to integrate the Disarmament Agency into the foreign policymaking apparatus. Should the agency report to the secretary of state, or to the president? An independent agency would signal how seriously the Kennedy administration took arms control and disarmament, but might bog down policymaking unnecessarily and make the Disarmament Agency a dwarf among federal giants—the State Department and Defense Department. Edmund A. Gullion, an Eisenhower administration holdover and acting deputy director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Administration (ACDA’s predecessor), explored the two possible arrangements in a 1961 memorandum for Kennedy.75 _{An executive agency would show}

the seriousness with which the US took arms control, attract the best minds including the technical experts needed to untangle the knotty problems related to, for instance, a comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty, foster scientific and strategic ingenuity and, most important, serve as a platform from which to resolve disputes among departments whose parochial interests might impede needful steps towards arms control. Gullion nevertheless preferred the second option of keeping the ACDA under the Department of State’s umbrella. He cited factors such as the need to uphold the centrality of Foggy Bottom in foreign policy, tap its institutional memory and its resources, and take advantage of the

74 _{“Announcement of William Foster as Director of the ACDA,” 26 September 1961, Office of the White}

House Press Secretary, Department and Agencies, Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA), POF, JFKL, http://www.jfklibrary.org/Asset-Viewer/Archives/JFKPOF-069-016.aspx

75 _{Edmund A. Gullion, Memorandum for the Kennedy Administration, “A United States Arms Control}

secretary of state’s seniority among presidential lieutenants. He warned though that the agency needed autonomy in legislation, financing, and staffing.76

Gullion’s biggest concern was that an autonomous agency would bow to the mighty Pentagon on matters of national security.77 _{Kennedy’s special adviser on}

disarmament and arms control, John J. McCloy, on the other hand, worried about the State Department. The root problem was the susceptibility of broad agreements, which arms control and disarmament always constituted, of getting lost in the shuffle due to the compartmentalized makeup of Foggy Bottom, where the most influential and experienced bureaucrats worked in offices with regional or bilateral foci. In his Senate testimony, McCloy proclaimed arms control and disarmament too important to be “buried in the State Department,” and insisted that the Disarmament Agency possess statutory authority and hence a congressional imprimatur. He urged a reluctant Senator J. William Fulbright, the powerful chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, to back this course of action.78

Kennedy chose to split the difference on account of Gullion and McCloy’s advice. The final legislative act created the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency as a semi-autonomous agency reporting to the secretary of state, but enjoying separate statutory authority and its own budget, as well as direct access to the president upon the secretary’s notification. This “two-hat” arrangement in which the director would report to the secretary and the president alike, left State in its traditional role as the architect of U.S. foreign policy while satisfying those who wanted an independent agency freed from

76 _{Ibid., 1.}

77 _{Quoted in “A Return to Arms Control and Non-Proliferation Process,” Ambassador Thomas Graham,}

Jr., May 15, 2008, 110th United States Congress, Testimony to the Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, the Federal Workforce, and the District of Columbia, Committee on Homeland Security and Government Organization, United States Senate.

78 _{John J. McCloy, Letter to Senator J. W. Fulbright, 2 August 1961, ACDA, POF, JFKL,}

its infighting. As a result of McCloy’s lobbying, the agency would report to Congress semi-annually. Although this would subject it to partisanship, in compensation the statutory mandate allowed Foster and his deputy, Adrian Fisher, to call on congressional support when the executive branch proved recalcitrant.

Elite opinion on the agency was split. Eisenhower’s Secretary of Defense Robert Lovett worried that the Disarmament Agency would become “a mecca for a wide variety of screwballs,” while Kennedy’s Secretary of State Dean Rusk asserted that “[d]isarmament is a unique problem … reach[ing] beyond the operational functions the Department [of State] is designed to handle.”79 _{The agency afforded a partial solution to}

Eisenhower’s farewell warning of an ever more prevalent and pernicious “military- industrial complex” in American politics. With hindsight, the Disarmament Agency’s record under Foster would exceed initial expectations.80 _{Though it would suffer from}

partisan rancor afterward, in its heyday it supplanted the State Department’s Policy Planning Council as the primary author of U.S. grand strategy. By the end of the decade, the agency had negotiated the LTBT and the NPT, becoming arguably the main driver of strategic thought in the Johnson years with the National Security Council (NSC) preoccupied with Vietnam.81 _{The Disarmament Agency’s success in harnessing nuclear}

diplomacy to the goal of a more stable world testified to the messy process by which democratic and bureaucratic states design grand strategy and raised the question of whether, by 1968, Cold War containment referred solely to the Soviet Union.82

79 _{Quoted in Michael Krepon, “Can this agency be saved?,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, vol. 5(10)}

(December 1988), 35-38; Quoted in “A Return to Arms Control and Non-Proliferation Process,” Ambassador Thomas Graham, Jr. testimony.

80 _{United States Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, Arms Control and Disarmament Agreements: Texts and}

Histories of Negotiations (Washington, D.C., 1982).

81 _{Andrew Preston, The War Council: McGeorge Bundy, the NSC, and Vietnam (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard}

University Press, 2006).

Foster’s managerial skill and personal steel were indispensable to navigating the thorny maze of the U.S. national security state. Given the zeitgeist of Cold War America, where nuclear arms control and disarmament schemes were often smeared as appeasement with analogies drawn readily to Munich, Foster was careful to chart a course between the Scylla of unilateral disarmament and the Charybdis of an unending race for nuclear supremacy.83 _{He kept the essence of his worldview tucked cagily away.}

The job of a government official, he seemed to believe, was to execute policy rather than make it. Even so, Foster worked assiduously behind the scenes to build consensus and outmaneuver bureaucratic rivals by cultivating allies, finessing opponents and using the media and congress to push the US toward constructive engagement on arms control.

Notwithstanding his reputation as a consummate mandarin, Foster’s affinity for arms control policy apparently ran deeper. His writings, correspondence, and record in office reveal an abiding faith in the power of a rules-based global order to forestall interstate conflict through dispute settlement, collective security and arms control. Foster seems to have been a pragmatic adherent of the Wilsonian tradition in U.S. foreign relations that originated in the legal utopias of the nineteenth century when European elites foresaw a world where international councils and legal procedures would mend any tears in a patchwork of sovereign nation-states, at least on the European continent.84 _The

postwar thrust of US foreign policy fused the idealism and moralism of liberal internationalism with a strategy of containing Soviet power by encircling the U.S.S.R. with military power.85 _{It is arguable that the orientation of U.S. foreign policy changed}

83 _{Stephen J. Whitfield, The Culture of the Cold War, The American Moment (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins}

University Press, 1991).