The Nome Nugget

U.S. Accuses USSR
Of Sabotage at
Geneva Conference

WASHINGTON (P) - The United States accused Russia Saturday of trying to "sabotage the Geneva nuclear test ban negotiation." It matched the charge with a proposal that the United Nations review the "urgent need" for a test ban treaty.
The accusation is perhaps the bitterest yet made by the United States against the Soviet government in a formal note in the 23/4 years that the test ban talks have been under way.
The note was delivered to the Soviet Foreign Ministry Saturday by the U. S. Embassy in Moscow. It was released by the State Department here almost simultaneously with filing of the appeal to the United Nations in New York.
The United States and Britain asked that the question of a treaty on banning tests of nuclear weapons be put on the agenda of the U. N. General Assembly opening Sept. 19.
The note replies to one on July 7 telling the United States Russia would accept nuclear control only if the West accepts Soviet proposals for complete disarmament.
A State Department spokesman said in spite of the charge of sabotage against Russia and in spite of the move to take the whole nuclear test issue back into the United Nations "we are going on with the talks at Geneva.
Those talks started in the fall of 1958 and have now been deadlocked for many months.
From the early days of the Geneva conference there has been a moratorium among the United States, Britain and France on nuclear testing though U. S. officials say they do not know whether the Soviets have cheated on the gentlemen's agreement or not.
The U. S. message to Moscow said there were several examples of "the Soviet Union's attempts to sabotage" the Geneva conference. One of these, the United States declared, is Russia's proposal for a three-headed executive committee to operate a test ban inspection system. In connection with this, the note said, the Soviet Union has argued that "there are not and cannot be neutral people" who can serve in international administrative positions.