The finalization of a completed draft nuclear nonproliferation treaty, which the ENDC transmitted to by the United Nations without endorsement on March 18, 1968, launched a French review of the NPT’s implications for international law. The draft NPT was accompanied by a proposed United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSC), whose soft guarantees against nuclear-weapon use or threats had been a compromise workd out between Washington and Moscow. An initial study by Foreign Ministry lawyers identified numerous “juridical reasons… to fight against a project that, in its letter if not its spirit, constitutes a revision of the [UN] Charter." The report elaborated on how the hierarchization of “forms of aggression” would “downgrade” non-nuclear (i.e. conventional) violence. Non-nuclear-weapon states treaty signatories would receive non-binding security guarantees. The “Anglo-Saxons and Soviets” would maintain “freedom of action as far as what measures they choose to adopt.” Although the French government’s foremost legal experts opted not to advise vetoing the UNSC resolution, they warned the NPT package could serve as a warrant for nuclear-armed permanent members of the UN Security Council to wage “preventive war” in the name of worldwide nonproliferation.

The French decision to join EURATOM was conditioned on the regional agency not impinging on national nuclear programs. As early as 1955, French Prime Minister Guy Mollet had instructed French negotiators that “Euratom will not be an obstacle toward the possible decision of France … to build nuclear weapons.”  While EURATOM’s jurisdiction would be limited to negotiating purchases of fissile materials, promoting trade with the United States and the United Kingdom, and exchanging reactors designs and civilian technology among members of the Atlantic community, Couve de Murville credited EURATOM with a fringe benefit: monitoring West Germany. In this spring 1960 letter to Prime Minister Michel Debré about revising the treaty, he warned against the removal of EURATOM controls over raw uranium and thorium or enriched uranium. Their removal, he cautioned, would create a dilemma: “either abandon the idea that German’s renunciation of atomic armaments could be enforced or support the enforcement of equivalent controls under the West European Union, which … would interfere in the direction of our programs and the development of our nuclear weapons.”

This report recounts developments at the UN First Committee from the beginning of the special session, April 24, to the plenary vote on June 12, 1968. Among the interesting observations was how the “most important resistance cell had … surprisingly developed among the Black African states,” who had sought concessions from the United States on apartheid South Africa’s mandate over South West Africa (modern-day Namibia). The report notes the various changes forced on the superpowers by Italy and Mexico on behalf of the non-nuclear-weapon delegations. The aide-memoire concluded that “[a]lthough these concessions [were] more apparent than real, they served as a pretext for a number of delegations, under intense Soviet and American pressure, to go along with the draft resolution thus revised.” The French delegate to the United Nations, Armand Berard, explained to the General Assembly on June 12 the reasons for France’s abstention. In accordance with Francis Perrin’s recommendations, Berard elaborated that although France would not sign the NPT when “the real issue was effective nuclear disarmament,” it would nonetheless pledged to behave “[e]xactly in such a way as those States which opt to adhere to it.”

 This short research note briefly explores the case for and against vetoing the UNSC resolution. As the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union were serving as co-sponsors, and the Republic of China on Taiwan would welcome any international measure the People’s Republic of China opposed, France was the only state in a position to veto the UNSC resolution and perhaps torpedo the NPT when the UNGA special session met in late April. If France were to abstain, it would be henceforth bound by the resolution. Even so, the report cautioned whether “a negative attitude” should outweigh “the downside of defeating a project whose intention, if not whose content, fulfills the wishes of the vast majority of non-nuclear delegations.”

This Foreign Ministry analysis was written for French Foreign Minister Maurice Couve de Murville. It spells out the obstacles facing an independent deterrent two weeks after France’s first nuclear test on February 13, 1960. The author cautions that a “minor deterrent” of a few dozen 100-kilton atom bombs loaded on vulnerable, short-range Mirage IV A fighter-bombers would cost hundreds of billions of francs. Intermediate-range ballistic missiles with which to threaten Moscow would require an additional 8-10 years and a further cost of 500 billion francs (around $100 billion in 1960). In order to match the superpowers’ thermonuclear level, that figure could rise as a high as “several trillion” over more than a decade, during which time the United States and the Soviet Union might well leapfrog the French force de dissuasion.

This 18-page memorandum was circulated to French embassies on the eve of the special UNGA session. The report recaps the series of events leading up to the international meeting, including the early history of the treaty, through an article-by-article analysis of the treaty text’s negotiating history. After reviewing the contexts in which the treaty was negotiated, the report concluded by citing three major elements as informing the French attitude. The first was the German question and, specifically, how the NPT would internationalize West Germany’s non-nuclear status, deepening its dependence on France. The second was the positive attitude of most nations—the vast majority of which lacked the wherewithal to build nuclear deterrents—to institutionalize their neighbors’ non-nuclear-weapon status. The third and “most remarkable element” was the U.S.-Soviet joint effort, undeterred by the Vietnam War, “to consolidate the current world balance under their dual control.” French “reservations” therefore boiled down to two critiques of the emerging regime: that it would “consolidate nuclear monopolies,” namely the U.S. and Soviet power blocs, “and legalize discrimination between States.”

These excerpts from the memoirs of a former member of Italy’s 36th Air Brigade, published by the Italian Air Force, provides fascinating perspective on the shock felt by officers when they received the dismantling instructions and then how they planned and carried out their tasks. The following sentences convey the emotional reactions: “The dismantling, for those who experienced it, was a real demolition. A frenetic destructive activity pervaded the military community which, almost with anger and a certain sadism, destroyed and reduced to useless remains everything on which it had studied, worked and operated.” As the excerpts makes clear, not everything was destroyed and junked. Consistent with the Joint Staff’s original proposals, sensitive components, such as the warheads were returned to the U.S., while other parts of the missiles were salvaged and made available to other organizations. Some equipment went to Italy’s “San Marco” space research program, just as Prime Minister Fanfani had proposed to President Kennedy during their meeting in January 1963.

To what extent the dismantling procedure in Turkey paralleled the one in Italy remains unclear, at least on the basis of available documentation.

In a hand-written note, McNamara reports that the last Jupiter missile in Turkey “came down yesterday” and that “The last Jupiter warhead will be flown out of Turkey on Saturday.”

Reporting on the visit of the Polaris submarine U.S.S. Sam Houston to Izmir, the Embassy finds it to be a “success from all points of view.” The press provided “maximum favorable coverage,” with one headline stating that the “Submarine which scares Soviets is in Izmir.” The press coverage emphasized the “power of atomic sub weapons as deterrent,” the “warmth of welcome extended to ship,” and the “importance of the dignitaries” who visited the ship.

This document is possibly an incomplete cross reference copy, and the original version was not found.

The U.S. Embassy in Ankara informs the State Department that the exchange of notes has been completed. The agreement text has yet to be declassified.