Senate, I transmit also the detailed report of the Department of State on these Treaties.*

These Treaties together establish procedures for the conduct of all underground nuclear explosions by the United States and the Soviet Union. All nuclear explosions other than underground nuclear explosions are prohibited by the Treaty Banning Nuclear Weapon Tests in the Atmosphere, in Outer Space and Under Water (the Limited Test Ban Treaty) of 1963.5 The TTB Treaty and PNE Treaty are the first agreements since the Limited Test Ban Treaty to impose direct restraints on nuclear explosions by the Parties and, as such, contribute to limiting nuclear arms competition.

These two Treaties represent approximately two years of intensive effort. Negotiation of the TTB Treaty began in the Spring of 1974 and was completed in July of that year. However, the question of the relationship of underground nuclear explosions for peaceful purposes to limitations on nuclear weapon testing was not then resolved. As a result, Article III of the TTB Treaty provided that the Parties would negotiate and conclude an agreement governing underground nuclear explosions for peaceful purposes. Work on the PNE Treaty began in the Fall of 1974 and after six lengthy negotiating sessions was completed in April of 1976.

The TTB Treaty and the PNE Treaty are closely interrelated and complement one another. The TTB Treaty places a limitation of 150 kilotons on all underground nuclear weapon tests carried out by the Parties. The PNE Treaty similarly provides for a limitation of 150 kilotons on all individual underground nuclear explosions for peaceful purposes.

During the negotiation of the PNE Treaty, the Parties investigated whether individual explosions with yields above 150 kilotons could be accommodated consistent with the agreed aim of not providing weapon-related benefits otherwise precluded by the TTB Treaty. The Parties did not develop a basis for such an accommodation, largely because it has not been possible to distinguish between nuclear explosive device technology as applied for weapon-related purposes and as applied for peaceful purposes. The Parties therefore agreed that the yield limitations on individual explosions in the two Treaties would be the same.

The TTB Treaty and the PNE Treaty contain numerous provisions to ensure adequate verification, including some concepts, more farreaching than those found in previous arms control agreements, which are not only important in themselves but which will have significant precedential value as well. For example, the Limited Test Ban Treaty is verified only by national technical means. The TTB and PNE Treaties add requirements for exchange of specific information in advance to assist verification by national technical means, and the PNE

Treaty establishes procedures for on-site observation under certain conditions on the territory of the Party conducting the explosion.

The TTB Treaty provides for an exchange of data on the geography and geology of nuclear weapon test sites as well as the yields of some actual weapons tests conducted at each site. The PNE Treaty requires that the Party conducting any underground nuclear explosion for peaceful purposes provide the other Party in advance with data on the geography and geology of the place where the explosion is to be carried out, its purpose, and specific information on each explosion itself. These requirements are related to the yield of the explosion and become more detailed as the magnitude of the explosions increase. In addition to the limitation on individual nuclear explosions of 150 kilotons, the PNE Treaty provides for an aggregate yield limitation of 1.5 megatons on group underground nuclear explosions for peaceful purposes. A group explosion consists of substantially simultaneous individual explosions located within a specific geometrical relationship to one another. The Treaty provides for mandatory on-site observer rights for group explosions with an aggregate yield in excess of 150 kilotons in order to determine that the yield of each individual explosion in the group does not exceed 150 kilotons and that the explosions serve the stated peaceful purposes. The Treaty also provides for on-site observers for explosions with an aggregate yield between 100 and 150 kilotons if both Parties agree, on the basis of information provided, that such observers would be appropriate for the confirmation. of the yield of the explosion.

The TTB Treaty and the PNE Treaty, taken together as integrated and complementary components of this important limitation on nuclear explosions, provide that very large yield nuclear explosions will no longer be carried out by the Parties. This is one more useful step in our continuing efforts to develop comprehensive and balanced limitations on nuclear weapons. We will continue our efforts to reach an adequately verifiable agreement banning all nuclear weapon testing, but in so doing we must ensure that controls on peaceful nuclear explosions are consistent with such a ban. These Treaties are in the national interest, and I respect fully recommend that the Senate give its advice and consent to ratification.

GERALD R. FORD

Message From President Ford Transmitting to the Congress the ACDA Annual Report for 1975, July 29, 19761

To the Congress of the United States:

As we celebrate our Bicentennial year, we are thankful that America is at peace. For the first time in many years, no American is engaged

1 Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, Aug. 2, 1976, pp. 1223–1224.

in combat anywhere in defense of our freedom. But we know that there are in the world forces hostile to freedom, and that to protect our security and the values we prize we must maintain our strength, our resolve, and our endeavors to safeguard peace.

To meet our responsibilities today we must deal with the problems of security in ways never dreamed of by our founding fathers. We must influence the policies of possible adversaries in two ways: by keeping our military forces strong, and by pursuing negotiations to create stability rather than a spiraling arms race in weapons of incalculable destructiveness.

In both these endeavors, there are grounds for confidence. We have and will maintain a strategic relationship with the Soviet Union which preserves our security. At the same time, we will continue to pursue arms control agreements that lessen the danger of war and serve to promote a stable and peaceful international order. We are negotiating wth the Soviet Union, with the Warsaw Pact countries, in the multilateral Geneva-based Conference of the Committee on Disarmament, and in the United Nations. We are mindful that many difficult questions remain to be solved, but I can report that steady progress has been made.

On May 28 I signed the Treaty on Underground Nuclear Explosions for Peaceful Purposes which has now been submitted to the Senate together with the related Threshold Test Ban Treaty. Both treaties. represent genuine progress in the two-decade struggle to halt nuclear weapons testing.2

In the current phase of the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks, we and the Soviet Union have made considerable progress since the Vladivostok meeting. Most of the elements needed for final agreement are already agreed. Certain issues are still unsettled but we will continue our effort to resolve them in a way that protects the interests of both sides, and enables us to complete a new SALT agreement on the basis of the Vladivostok accords.3

In negotiations to reduce forces in central Europe, both the NATO and the Warsaw Pact nations have made new proposals. Through these negotiations we hope to achieve a more stable military balance in central Europe at lower levels of forces. And in the Conference of the Committee on Disarmament, the United States and the Soviet Union have tabled identical draft texts of a convention to outlaw environmental modification techniques for hostile purposes.*

The Administration has undertaken a vigorous action program to strengthen the barriers against further proliferation of nuclear weapons. We have moved to increase the effectiveness of the Non-proliferation Treaty and the International Atomic Energy Agency. Controls

Ante, pp. 328-348. For the threshold test ban treaty, see Documents on Disarmament, 1974, pp. 225–227.

3

The Vladivostok accords have been published ibid., pp. 746–747.

Ibid., 1975, pp. 385-388.

5 Ibid., 1968, pp. 461-465.

on American exports of nuclear materials and sensitive technology have been made even more rigorous. The United States has taken an important initiative to establish new cooperation with the other major nations supplying nuclear equipment and technology, and a common understanding has been reached on principles and standards governing nuclear exports.

These are tangible evidence of progress. This fifteenth annual report of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency sets forth in detail and perspective the advances that have been made and the difficult, essential work that must still be done. My Administration remains dedicated to continued and determined efforts for the control and balanced reduction of armaments.

GERALD R. FORD

Statement by ACDA Director Iklé to the Conference of the Committee on Disarmament: Arms Transfers, Nuclear Cooperation, and Non-Proliferation, July 29, 1976 1

It is a privilege for me to meet with this Committee again and to participate in the work of your Conference. The CCD-and its predecessor-have made significant contributions in promoting worldwide measures for arms control and disarmament. Today, you must all be gratified by the solid accomplishments that have marked the Committee's current session. I have in mind, in particular, the progress you have achieved on the convention against environmental warfare. My Government hopes that during the remainder of the summer session, the Committee will prepare a finished treaty text to be reported to the United Nations General Assembly this fall. There should be enough time left to complete the task.2

We also are pleased by signs of renewed progress on chemical weapons. In addition, I detect a fresh sense of purpose and a new sense of direction in the Committee's work on other arms control issues.

The CCD is uniquely qualified to work out arms control measures among many nations, especially those measures for which universal, worldwide participation is desirable. By contrast, the CCD is not an appropriate forum to bring into being those arms control and disarmament measures that must be negotiated between two Powers or between two opposing alliances.

Nonetheless, the CCD should carefully follow all developments in arms control and disarmament, and maintain an active interest in their further progress. We all know that the use of nuclear weapons

could cause disaster on a worldwide scale. My Government recognizes the legitimacy of this broader concern of the CCD and is anxious to keep this Conference informed of our many efforts toward new arms control measures-efforts which by necessity take place in other forums.

I would like now to turn to an arms control problem of great importance that has received only passing attention in the CCD. This is the widespread amassing of new armaments in many parts of the world. Year after year arms of great sophistication and destructive power are being acquired at a rapid rate, leading to a competitive buildup between neighboring countries at great expense to their peoples.

On this complex subject, my Government would like to hear the views of other nations here, and discuss with them any constructive suggestions. The United States delegate has addressed this problem on several occasions. In April 1975, for example, Ambassador Martin urged increased acceptance of responsibility by all nations, and suggested a basis for developing regional agreements to constrain conventional arms. To date these ideas have not yet received the serious attention that they deserve. Therefore, we were especially gratified that the representative of the Federal Republic of Germany, Ambassador Schlaich, addressed the subject in his statement to the Committee on Tuesday.*

Ambassador Martin has explained the principles that my Government would like to see followed:

-States should assume responsibility for making the judgment that the arms they acquire or transfer will not have adverse effects on regional or international security;

-Consultations among interested States on the possible effects of arms acquisition could be useful in preventing or alleviating regional or international tensions;

-States should limit arms acquisitions to those deemed indispensable for their security, to avoid the unnecessary diversion of resources from economic and social development;

-The export of technical data and equipment for manufacturing arms should be subject to the same effective government review and authorization procedures as arms exports themselves.

A number of factors have kept members of the international community from exercising more restraint in the import and accumulation of armaments. Naturally, sovereign nations would be concerned that restraints on the arms trade, or even a serious attempt to explore such limitations, might adversely affect their security, increase their dependence, or deny them certain economic advantages.