RUSSIAN PLAN

Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28266, 2 May 1957, Page 11

RUSSIAN PLAN

Kzsf Areas Of “Open Sky”

f MOSCOW, April 30. Russia today announced new disarmament proposals including an “open skies” aerial photography plan embracing vast areas of Soviet, American, and European territory.

This would include Eastern Siberia, and the Soviet Island territories of Kamchatka and Sakhalin, and the Western United States and Alaska.

Mr V. A. Zorin, Soviet representative at the London disarmament talks, quoted by the Soviet News Agency, Tass, said the new proposals took into consideration the personal interest of President Eisenhower and the United States Government. Because lack of agreement on aerial photographs had led to obstacles, even to the attainment of partial agreement, the Soviet Government had decided to take another step to meet the Western Powers half-way. The area covered by this “open skies” proposal, he said, totalled about 2,780,000 square miles of Soviet territory and about 2.730.000 square miles of United States territory. The Soviet Government had also taken a step to meet the American delegation on aerial photography within Europe. In addition, Russia called for agreement oh an agency within the framework of the United Nations Security Council to set up control posts to ensure against surprise attack.

Control posts should be set up in the Western frontier areas of the Soviet Union, in the Eastern United States and in N.A.T.O. and Warsaw Pact countries. Mr Zorin called for the introduction of “a minimum range of disarmament measures.” Nuclear tests, he said, should be settled independently and immediately. “Total Atom Ban”

Russia believed that a total ban on the use of atomic and hydrogen weapons was the minimum required for the conclusion of a partial agreement. The Soviet proposals also envisaged the reduction of the armed forces of the United States, Russia, and Communist China to 2,500.000 men each, and of Britain and France to 750.000 men each.

But because of anti-Soviet military pacts and forces close to her borders. Russia would agree to this reduction only if it were also agreed to make a further reduction later of the American, Soviet and Chinese forces to 1,500.000 men each. This, Mr Zorin said, was what the United States and her allies had themselves suggested earlier.

In proposing the big “open akies” zone, including parts of Europe, Russia had taken United States insistence on extensive aerial inspection into consideration. |

A Reuter correspondent said the gigantic aircraft and missile lactones of the Lockheed, Boeing and Convair firms were sited m California on the United States West Coast, and Nevada contained a guided missile testing range which was to De the scene of nuclear tests due to open on May 15.

The correspondent said that Eastern Siberia had been largely cloaked in secrecy and little was known in Washington of its industrial and military importance. Southern Sakhalin, one of the areas which the Soviet Union would open up to inspection, was formerly Japanese and had been in Russian hands only since World War 11. The northern volcanic area of Kamchatka was believed in Washington to be largely underdeveloped wasteland, he said. Thus, the Soviet proposal seemed at first sight to American observers to be a one-sided bargain.

Nevertheless, that the Soviet Union had at last shown willingness to open up part of its own territory in reply to the “open skies” plan first proposed by President Eisenhower at the 1955 Geneva “Summit” Conference, naturally evoked interest. President Eisenhower recently described the London disarmament talks as the most serious disarmament negotiations since World War 11. Other Western Powers have not subscribed to this optimistic appraisal, but some Washington authorities believed there might be room for further negotiation in the latest Soviet proposal.