Final verbatim record of the Conference of the Eighteen-Nation Committee on Disarmament [Meeting 023]

ENDC/PV.23
40
(M r. Godber, United Kingdom)
10 per cent of the zones -- however many there would be -- would be available for
inspection, and they would be chosen by the country on the other side. As one
advanced to 20 per cent of elimination of armaments, so one would advance to 20
per cent of zones.
It seems to me that if it is married mathematically in that way it does
accept the basic principle to which our Soviet colleague attaches so much importance -- the basic principle that the percentage of inspection must not exceed the
percentage of disarmament. If that be so, I do think there is merit in this
proposal. However, if it does not satisfy our Soviet colleague - and I hope
very much it does -- then I would say very sincerely to him that he has an
obligation to make some other suggestion which will help to overcome this
difficulty. In other words, it seems to me that an imaginative proposal has
been put forward here; I hope it will be accepted; but if it is not accepted it
is not sufficient merely to rest on these declarations that anything which seeks
verification of agreed remaining war potential is espionage, because to rest on
that is in fact to put the other representatives at this Conference in an impossible
position. We have got to find a way out of this difference. I think this
suggestion is a worthwhile one, but if it is not accepted we must have 'some other
proposal from our Eastern colleagues which really faces up to this problem.
I was encouraged when irr. Zorin said that his delegation was fully prepared
to study carefully any other proposals or measures which might be advanced by
other States. I say to him that I very much hope he will study this suggestion,
because it seems to me that it does offer very definite advantages. In the same
way, he recognized the need for international control over --
"...enterprises.which previously were wholly or partly engaged in
manufacturing the means of delivering nuclear weapons with a view to
preventing any clandestine resumption of their manufacture." (ENDC/PV.21
pae 32)
Presumably, if he accepts that principle for nuclear weapon vehicles, he will
also accept it for other weapons.
It therefore seems that there is a considerable measure of agreement here if
only we can get to the bottom of this basic difficulty, which I have tried to
define as seems to me to be required. And I say again -- I have made this

suggestion before in various contexts and it has not been taken up -- that
possibly this is a question which could, be studied by a sub-committee. I do