The Politics of Biological Disarmament - Deadly Cultures: Biological Weapons Since 1945 - page 324

be effective without also being extraordinarily intrusive, to us as well as
to the USSR, and since biological weapons have questionable utility, all
agencies consider the compliant procedures the only attainable system
and hence adequate for these particular weapons.” 65 The US State De-
partment explained its position in much greater detail in April 1971 fol-
lowing the president's approval of the policy described above. Although
the procedure involving the secretary general “could be useful in deter-
mining the facts in dispute, we are prepared to join in tabling a new draft
without it because it is not essential to our security interests.” 66
Consultations between the UK and the US regarding the Soviet Draft
Convention occurred on 4 May 1971. The UK still believed that a com-
plaint procedure in case of BW use should be included in the Convention.
It was suggested at this meeting that the UK and US continue to work on
the problem and let the Soviets know that they might want to return to
this point later in the negotiations. The US believed that the “only chance
of achieving some provision would be at [a] later stage if non-aligned
del[egation]s pressed for it.” The US and UK believed that the Soviets
had made a “major concession” in separating CW from BW. Suddenly, af-
ter years of lackadaisical attention to BW, “prompt negotiation of a first
agreed draft with the USSR” was thought to be advantageous to nail
down this concession. The next day the UK representative to the talks
recommended that the “US and UK...give up idea of joint approach
to [Soviets] and instead pursue separate, but mutually reinforcing, ap-
proaches.” The separation of approaches allowed the UK to continue to
press for a complaints procedure in case of use. 67
During the summer of 1971 negotiations led to a generally agreed-
upon draft text. In recommending approval of the treaty the most impor-
tant issue for National Security Advisor Kissinger was a “political hooker
. . . there are more references and a closer tie into chemical weapons.” A
memo to Kissinger detailed the references to CW in the then most recent
draft and declared that “the references to CW have been the price for
general support of a BW ban” from the nonaligned nations and the Sovi-
ets. The alternative to accepting the references to CW was to carry on
negotiations with no guarantee of a more favorable outcome. The US del-
egation had added language that would “protect our position that any
CW agreement would require more effective verification.” 68 These dis-
cussions did not touch on the elimination of research from the UK Draft