Andrei Gromyko Proposes Banning Nuclear Weapons on Behalf of the USSR

The proposal was a response to the American Baruch Plan, stipulating that the United States, which already possessed nuclear weapons and had used them, received total control over all nuclear production and research in the conditions of the already defined confrontation between the two great powers. The USSR, of course, was not going to accept such a plan and couldn’t let it go unanswered either.

The international community was offered the option of a complete ban on nuclear weapons, on the condition of the peaceful use of atomic energy. The US could not agree to the Soviet plan either. Yet, the idea of ​​control over nuclear production and research was constantly promoted, including after the elimination of the US monopoly on nuclear weapons. On 11 June 1947, the USSR presented the Atomic Energy Commission with a plan for placing nuclear materials under UN control after the elimination of atomic warheads. In 1948, the Soviet Union sent proposals to ban atomic weapons and to reduce the armaments and armed forces of the permanent members of the UN Security Council three-fold, but the United States did not agree with this option: Washington didn’t want to let Soviet influence spread to Western Europe.

In 1955, American physicists published “The Russell–Einstein Manifesto”, which called for the abandonment of plans to use atomic energy for military purposes. The Soviet Union put forward a proposal for the reduction of armaments at the 1955 Geneva Summit, the prohibition of atomic weapons, and the elimination of the threat of a new war. In 1959, the Soviet Government adopted the Declaration on General and Complete Nuclear Disarmament, stipulating the elimination of nuclear weapons.

Source: 

Pravda, No. 145 (10227), 20 June 1946