Security Council: Disarmament Commission

The Sub-Committee of the Disarmament Commission (Canada, France, Soviet Union, United Kingdom, and United States) held its 69th through 86th meetings, from March 19, 1956 through May 4, 1956, in London. France and the United Kingdom submitted a working document on March 19 providing for a plan in three stages, each of which was divided from the following one by the operations which were to be carried out by the control organ; each signatory was entitled to request an extension after each stage if one of the contracting parties had in good faith been unable to fulfill its obligations, the case being referred to the Security Council in certain clearly specified serious cases. The first stage called for the following sequence: 1) states would prohibit the use of nuclear weapons except in defense against aggression; 2) the general assembly of the international disarmament organization would meet to designate the non-permanent members of the executive committee and the director-general of the control organ; 3) the director-general would begin the recruitment and positioning of the first elements of the control organ; 4) after states had declared the levels of their armed forces and conventional armaments, they would not exceed those levels or their total declared military expenditure; 5) simultaneously, the aerial surveys provided for in the Eisenhower plan at Geneva, the fixed controls provided for in the Bulganin plan, and financial inspection would come into operation; 6) a meeting of the general assembly of the international disarmament organization would determine levels of armed forces and conventional armaments for states other than the permanent members of the Security Council, on the understanding that the highest of those levels would be “considerably below” the lowest of those fixed for the permanent members of the Security Council;