Disarmament Prospects

Americans must not assume too lightly that Premier Khrushchev's disarmament proposal is "only propaganda." A tendency exists here, particularly in high governmental circles, to dismiss anything that emerges from Russian mouths as tainted and patently unacceptable. No one can object to care or even suspicion in considering Soviet proposals, especially with so much at stake, but in this case there is a strong chance that Khrushchev means business. If so, he must be taken seriously.

If the Soviet Premier is sincere in proposing total disarmament with firm guarantees and complete inspection at every stage, the West is virtually morally compelled to accept. But acceptance and realization of total disarmament, as many fear and Khrushchev perhaps hopes, will severely strain an American economy in which more than half the national budget goes into defense.

Obviously, some readjustment and redirection of resources is going to be necessary, but just as such a step will be imperative economically it will be difficult politically. A systematic program of redirection is bound to include such traditional bugaboos as national health insurance, large-scale federal highway construction and comprehensive federal aid to education. The leaders and the people of the United States will have to meet the domestic challenge of total disarmament with a forcefulness and imagination they have shown only in times of extreme calamity.

Total disarmament, to be sure, is not the only possible forward step. Some sort of half-way measure is more likely to emerge from negotiation. But along this line Khrushchev's particular proposals require very careful scrutiny, for they seem designed to weaken the West far more than the Soviet Union. The Russians ask the elimination of foreign bases and nuclear weapons, followed, not accompanied, by inspection. Even if the Soviets carried out this process in good faith, their superior ground forces would give them a military advantage which might well tempt them into provoking limited peripheral conflicts without fear of nuclear retaliation. The next step, or possibly a concurrent one, according to Khrushchev, would be the removal of foreign troops from western and central Europe: the United States would pull back 3000 miles across an ocean; the Soviet Union would pull back several hundred miles across land.

These Soviet proposals for partial disarmament are clearly dangerous from the Western point-of-view. Their acceptance would have to be based on a complete trust in Soviet motives, and not even the most sanguine pacifists can be this ingenuous. The West either must work for total disarmament or must propose some partial steps of its own. These steps would need to go further than unilateral cessation of nuclear testing or than the rather far-fetched "open skies" concept.

The wisest course might be a slow step-by-step disengagement, with the measures growing as mutual trust grew; no one step could set either power at a catastrophic disadvantage. Inspection of a meaningful kind would of course be necessary, especially at the beginning. A good first step could be an atom-free, demilitarized zone in middle Germany, which could be expanded if it were found workable.

Disarmament is the most important problem waiting to be solved on the international scene, and steps toward it can be taken without first eliminating political crises like Berlin. It is all very well to attempt to cut off possible conflict by removing causes of disagreement, but it is equally useful to prevent war by removing its instruments from the hands of potential adversaries. The possible sincerity of Khrushchev's proposals makes the forthcoming negotiation a precious opportunity to achieve a meaningful international settlement in the essential disarmament field.