DISARMAMENT: Ban on Biologicals

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As they emerged from a conference room in Geneva's Palais des Nations, Soviet Ambassador Aleksei Roshchin and U.S. Ambassador James Leonard made no effort to conceal their delight. They had just agreed on a draft treaty banning the development, production and stockpiling of biological weapons, and pledged to negotiate another treaty forbidding chemical weapons. Said Leonard: "We are particularly pleased that we are now engaged in applying real disarmament measures as opposed to earlier agreements that dealt with preventive measures against rearming."

The agreement came after nearly two years of deadlock at the 25-nation Geneva Disarmament Conference. In March, Moscow abandoned its earlier position that biological and chemical weapons had to be covered in one treaty. Washington had insisted that chemical weapons be negotiated separately on the grounds that more stringent inspection would be required. There was also the complication that the U.S. was using chemical weapons, notably tear gases and herbicides, in Viet Nam.

The present draft treaty, which will eventually go to the U.N. General Assembly, does not provide for an inspection system, but violations may be brought before the Security Council. The Russians have never admitted to having any biological weapons, though intelligence sources say that Russia does have vast stockpiles. The U.S., which reportedly has a billion lethal doses of nerve gas alone, has already started destroying its stockpiles.

The draft treaty mentions "the important significance" of the 1925 Geneva Protocol banning the use of gases and bacteriological agents. As it happens, the U.S. never ratified that treaty. The Nixon Administration resubmitted the protocol to the Senate in late 1969, but stated that it did not interpret it to include irritant gases and herbicides. Since this directly contradicted a 1969 United Nations resolution, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee earlier this year asked the Administration to restudy the herbicide and tear gas question. There the matter rests.