Note: For those readers who know about the infamous document, Freedom From War: The United States Program for General and Complete Disarmament in a Peaceful World, released by the US State Department in 1961, the first few items in this timeline will be an eye-opener.

First Stage:

- All means of nuclear weapon delivery would be disbanded, including strategic rockets, surface vessels and submarines, and military aircraft and artillery with such capability.

- All troops would be removed from foreign lands. All foreign-held military bases would be shut down.

- An international control group accountable to the UN Security Council and General Assembly would oversee this first stage of general disarmament. This Control Council would have inspection teams dispatched to military bases, airfields and ports, and rocket launching sites to oversee the dismantling process and troop withdrawals. Moreover, inspection teams will be unhindered from entering factories and facilities, shipyards, and any other enterprise that may be linked to the weapons industry.

- Complete prohibition of weapons of mass destruction, including the stockpiling of chemical, biological, and nuclear materials for war purposes.

- Conventional forces would be drastically downsized. “The armed forces of all states shall be reduced to agreed levels... Military expenditures of states shall be reduced accordingly.”

- The Control Council and inspection teams would be granted sweeping authority and have unlimited access to military installations, ports and airfields, and other facilities deemed necessary to ensure disarmament. Furthermore, inspection teams would secure military projects.

- “The abolition of the armed forces of all states will be completed. States will have at their disposal only strictly limited contingents of police (militia), the size of which will be agreed upon for each country, and which will be equipped with light firearms, for maintaining internal order and ensuring the personal security of citizens.”

- All remaining conventional ammunition and armaments would be destroyed, and all military production would cease.

- “War ministries, general staffs and all military and para-military establishments and organizations will be abolished. All military training for reservists will be terminated.”

- National and private funding of all military programs would be discontinued.

- The Control Council would remain active to ensure nations comply with all disarmament goals; “The Control Council will have the right to send mobile inspection teams to any point or to any establishment in the territory of states.” The control organization will also monitor national police units, their mobilization and activities near borders, and their size based on previously agreed limitations.

- National police and militia units may be called upon to serve under the command of the United Nations Security Council.

On September 23, Khrushchev submitted a statement to the UN General Assembly regarding global disarmament, noting that “world security” would be maintained by the UN Security Council and that the nature of socialism is world peace.

By framing the disarmament debate and appealing to the consciousness of liberal Westerners, pacifists and religious organizations - a point made by Barghoorn in his important study - the propaganda of peace became a valuable tool in fermenting animosity toward Western ideals. It also built-up the credibility of United Nations enhancement, particularly in the eyes of Third World leaders aliened with Soviet sentiments and socialist intellectuals in the West. An empowered UN equipped to act as the agent of “word peace” and backed by the power of world socialism, it was believed, could become the mechanism to dislodge “American imperialism.”

1960: Through the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Lincoln P. Bloom published his book, The United Nations and U.S. Foreign Policy. Here he laid out his vision for “world order,” the development of a United Nations international stand-by force, and the role of disarmament, albeit in the recognition that political hurdles would have to be cleared first.

“There is no task more vital and urgent today than the task of preserving peace. The efforts of all states, all members of the United Nations Organization, of all people of the world must be directed toward preserving peace and eliminating war forever from the life of human society. A correct and reliable way toward this goal is provided by general and complete disarmament, which will wholly destroy the military machines of states and secure a world without arms, a world without wars...

"...The Soviet Union is prepared to sign at any moment a treaty on general and complete disarmament with the establishment of the strictest international control.”

1961: President John F. Kennedy delivered a speech to the United Nations General Assembly that had strikingly similar themes to Khrushchev’s 1959 call for global disarmament. Kennedy talked about how the armament problem is “no longer a Soviet problem or an American problems, but a human problem.” What was needed, according to the President, was a stage-by-stage program of “general and complete disarmament under effective and international control.”

1961: In September, the US Department of State - presumably through its Disarmament Administration - released Department of State Publication 7277, Freedom From War: The United States Program for General and Complete Disarmament in a Peaceful World.

This document essentially mirrored the Soviet three-stage general and complete disarmament program, including disbanding national forces with the exception of what’s needed for internal security. A global control and inspection body would likewise be implemented, and when the third stage was complete, the United Nations would be “sufficiently strong and the obligations of all states under such arrangements sufficiently far-reaching as to assure peace and the just settlement of differences in a disarmed world.” According to Publication 7277, this meant the development of a progressively strengthened UN Peace Force.

1961: The bottom line under both the Soviet and American program was this: Nations must diminish as the United Nations increases. Freedom From War was a call for world government.

Foreign policy elites and technicians, including Harrison Brown who had played a role in the development of the first atomic bomb, along with scientists linked to the Democratic Advisory Council's Committee on Science and Technology, worked on the concept of an officially independent US disarmament office tentatively titled the US Peace Agency. Some within this group envisioned it operating out of the White House as an executive arm of the President.

Moving from the concept to the concrete, John J. McCloy drafted a bill to create the US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA) as a stand-alone entity replacing the short-lived State Department’s Disarmament Administration. This bill also created the General Advisory Committee for Arms Control with the purpose of giving advice to the US President, Secretary of State, and ACDA Director. On September 26, 1961, the Arms Control and Disarmament Act passed. The ACDA officially was placed within the US national security community, and John J. McCloy became chair of the General Advisory Committee.

Concerns over the ACDA were immediately raised by certain Congressmen and military brass, worried that this new agency would become a haven for radicals and “beatniks” - a “government in exile for the peace movement.” Robert Lovett, former Secretary of Defense, expressed concern that the ACDA would turn into “a Mecca for a wide variety of screwballs.”

The first ACDA Director was William C. Foster, a Republican with a reputation for being promilitary. Although he was deemed acceptable to critics of the ACDA, the agency’s purpose was to move “toward ultimate world disarmament” - so it was no surprise that the ACDA drew from people with an internationalist mindset. For example, one of the first men to enter the agency’s fold was McCloy’s aide, Richard J. Barnet.

Earlier Barnet had been involved with the organizing of the ACDA concept, and in 1961 he was appointed Special Assistant to the Department of State. When the ACDA became operational he moved into the new agency as Deputy Director of Political Research. Barnet was an interesting character. Previously he had been a Fellow with the Russian Research Center at Harvard, and his “official” career in ACDA didn’t last long.

While attending “a high-powered State Department meeting full of generals and defense industry executives in 1961,” he and another young man, Marcus Raskin - a member of the National Security Council’s Special Staff - heard one official say, “if this group cannot bring about disarmament, then no one can.” Snickering at the comment, Barnet and Raskin’s eyes met from across the room. Two years later both had quit their government positions to run their newly created organization, the Institute for Policy Studies, a leftist think-tank dedicated to arms control and peace advocacy.

Barnet was only one of many who felt the gravitational pull of ACDA. “World government” advocates Lincoln P. Bloomfield, Arthur I. Waskow, and Richard A. Falk were soon connected. For many elites of the day, this start-up agency smelled of opportunity. Writing on the early years of the ACDA, journalist Arthur Herzog made an interesting observation.

1961: The Peace Research Institute was established in Washington DC as a “research and educational organization.” Although I was unable to obtain much information about the history or make-up of the PRI, from what I do have it is evident that the organization was used as a conduit of ACDA grant funds to Arthur I. Waskow - a name that prominently features in this timeline.

1961: A World Effectively Controlled by the United Nations, was published by the Washington based Institute for Defense Analysis, under contract by the US Department of State. Its author, Lincoln P. Bloomfield (see page 3) was connected to the arms control and disarmament agenda throughout the 1960s.

Essentially, A World Effectively Controlled by the United Nations outlined UN empowerment in a new world model - a “world government” through mandatory membership in global institutions. Moreover, this United Nations “world government” would have a nuclear equipped global military force. The following was taken from the “Summary.” (NOTE: I have separated the points for easier reading)

1962: In May, the United States Arms Control and Disarmament Agency Agency released its report, Blueprint for the Peace Race: Outline of Basic Provisions of a Treaty on General and Complete Disarmament in a Peaceful World - also known as the Outline.

After a tense naval blockade, backchannel negotiations, and agreed-upon conditions, the Soviet Union pulled its missiles from Cuba. America, in turn, dismantled its Jupiter class nuclear missiles in Turkey.

The Cuban Missile Crisis dealt a blow to the Soviet/American push for “general and complete disarmament.” Instead, the principle of “mutual assured destruction” was solidified; Through the use of nuclear weaponry, each nation had the capability of destroying the other in a near simultaneous action - both attacker and defender would lose in a nuclear exchange.

At the same time, the Cuban Crisis became an example used by many elites to continue the push towards United Nations empowerment - for in the minds of many, only an international force under a world authority could be impartial in the Cold War split between the USSR and the United States.

1962: Kenneth Boulding, Professor of Economics at Michigan University, social scientist, and co-founder of the General System Theory, penned an article titled “The Prevention of World War III.” Professor Boulding called for a “world social contract” with disarmament in mind, and he postulated what this would look like once it was achieved.

1962: Richard A. Falk, a professor of international law and a leading advocate of world government - he has been a major figure in World Federalist circles, and today he is the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Palestine - published an essay on revolutionary trends towards a “warless world.” This was a radical call, demanding major “social change” and the “sacrifice” of privileged roles for leading nations. Falk wrote,

“...the transformation that we envision restructures relations, institutions, and values through time - by shifting power, by developing techniques to influence behavior to form new loyalties and new inhibitions, and by acting to create a new world consciousness that accepts the altered distribution of power and loyalty.”

To that end, Falk recognized that force and coercion may still be necessary tools.

“Although it is desirable to abolish the use of force in international affairs we are not eager to eliminate the possibilities for radical international change. In this connection it must be acknowledged that force has played a central legislative role in world politics...”

In terms of increasing tension in the realm of traditional national affairs, Falk wrote;

“The result of these challenges to the traditional international legal system is to create a situation of transitional crisis. For the inadequacies of the old order have given rise to the beginnings of a new order...”

Recognizing the “problems of conflict management” in transitioning to an international order, which may witness a violent setback within the Cold War context, it was noted that the world community, “acting as a whole or as a region, can take responsibility for coercing certain minimum changes in domestic communities.” In other words, to prevent internal strife or conflict between countries, the international community must shape domestic behavior for world thinking, and coercion is a tool to be used to that end.

1962: The Arms Control and Disarmament Agency hosted a “Summer Study on Verification and Response in Disarmament Agreements” at Woods Hole, Massachusetts. Attending the event were twenty-four lawyers, scientists, and political elite.

    - Louis B. Sohn.  (See, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, April 1963, pp.44-48)

1963: Nuclear weapons testing was the focus of negotiations between the USSR, the United States, and the United Kingdom. The outcome was the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (NTBT) which went into effect on October 10, 1963. NTBT prohibited atomic-weapon testing in outer space and underwater, and it was hoped it would pave the way to further disarmament goals.

1963: The Washington-based Institute for Policy Studies opened as a “counterinstitution,” a policy pressure group working on the “edges of government.”
 

Organized by former Deputy Director of Political Research at ACDA, Richard Barnet, and former National Security Council’s Special Staff member, Marcus Raskin, this progressive-left think tank advocated for general disarmament and world peace. In a sense, the IPS unleashed the more radical scholars attached to the ACDA. Moreover, linkages continued to exist between the ACDA and IPS, particularly through research grants to IPS “fellows” such as Arthur I. Waskow via the Peace Research Institute.

Other ACDA-IPS linked personalities included Hans J. Morgenthau and Richard Falk. Paul Warnke, who would later become Director of the ACDA under the Carter administration, was also a contributor to an early IPS conference.

Commenting on the history of the Institute for Policy Studies, Professor Maurice Tugwell wrote, “Almost everything the Institute for Policy Studies has ever done is anti-Western, antidefence, and pro-Marxist.” Professor John J. Tierney from the Institute of World Politics has this to say about the history of the IPS.

“During the Cold War IPS spouted a far left anti-capitalist ideology, and it fostered close ties to communist and socialist parties around the globe. IPS activists made their careers exposing and condemning what they considered human rights abuses by the U.S. and its allies. But they took advantage of American civil liberties to protect themselves while they denounced the government that guaranteed their liberty.

 

IPS was careful to put itself on record as being critical of the police state methods of the KGB and other Communist security forces. But it was largely silent about totalitarian rule in the Soviet Union and eastern Europe, China, Cuba, the Sandinistas in Nicaragua and other Marxist states, and instead found reasons to support America’s enemies.
 

For decades IPS welcomed foreign and domestic radicals. IPS co-founder Richard Barnet once said the communist threat was a ‘myth... that no one quite believed in’ and he described the Soviet Union as an innocent victim of U.S. corporate power: ‘the Soviets moved in a spirit of insecurity and panic.’ IPS senior fellow Saul Landau called the USSR mankind’s savior: ‘The Soviet Union has been the one insurance policy of successful revolutions.’

With all of this in mind, Professor Tierney asks an interesting question:

“In retrospect, how could any group prosper when it made such preposterous claims? It’s clear that IPS had little or no interest in America’s Founding principles and social virtues. But what explains its neutrality toward the contest pitting totalitarianism against liberty. Were the ‘public scholars’ at IPS naive progressives, ‘fellow travelers’ or ‘agents of influence’?”

“Near the other end of the spectrum of peace policies is the possibility of sizable change from the present situation, to one involving world government: the world operating under agreed rules of law that could be enforced by a worldwide institution more powerful than any single nation. In this possible future, all problems of disarmament and economic development would be dealt with by a world legislature and world courts with a world armed force at their disposal.

For example, the world legislature would have power to spell out what kinds of weapons that would be forbidden, to raise or reduce the inspection requirements, and to provide for courts where individuals could be tried or nations enjoined. An attempt by one nation to cast off the agreement would be forbidden, and so the world institution would need armed forces powerful enough to punish such a secession.”

1963: Richard A. Falk - an international law advocate and World Federalist - published an essay exploring the moral and legal limits regarding the use of force in an international context. Falk recognized “a need to confront the problem of civil disobedience in international affairs.” In this sense he wasn’t talking about people acting against the world community. Rather, Falk was making reference to individual nations, who are deemed a single entity in a new world order. In other words, individual countries can be viewed as “good” or “bad” global citizens, and can thus be considered “obedient” or “disobedient” to the world state.

1963: The United States Arms Control and Disarmament Agency provided a grant to the Peace Research Institute to conduct studies on how to manage an International Police Force in the new published by the Peace Research Institute.

Contributors to the Appendix included the following authors and their essay titles.

NOTE: All of the following, with the exception of Singer, either were or have been members of the Council on Foreign Relations. Singer, however, was heavily tied to the one-world movement and later was a member of the World Federalist Association - the largest pro-world government organization in the United States.

 - Walter Millis: “The Political Control of an International Force.”

 - Hans J. Morgenthau: “The Impartiality of the International Police.”

 - Roger Fisher: “Sequential Controls for International Police.”

 - J. David Singer: “The Internal Operation and Organization of an International Police Force.”

 - Lincoln P. Bloomfield: “Political Control of International Forces in Dealing with Problems of Local Instability.” Bloomfield also contributed a second essay on the UN Force in Congo.

 - Richard C. Snyder: “Some Thoughts on Problems of Thinking into the Future, with Particular Reference to Political Control of an International Police Force.”

1963: Speaking to the Harvard Alumni Association, UN Secretary-General U Thant addressed the need for a United Nations Peace Force in what he called a “new world order.” Although he recognized that the timing was not yet right, his hope was clear,

               (U Thant, “United Nations Peace Force,” reprinted in The Strategy of World Order: Volume 3 - The United Nations (World Law Fund, 1966), p.526, 532-533)

1964: Lincoln P. Bloomington published his book, International Military Forces. In it, six leading global thinkers unpacked the problems and challenges of a United Nations military force in a series of essays. Bloomington’s essay proposed a UN stand-by force of 25,000 men, a UN training program, and independent funding. Other contributors, such as Henry V. Dicks, discussed the social impact upon the “international soldier,” such as the problem of loyalty,  morale and belief in the cause, social integration and cohesion in an international military force. Hans J. Morgenthau’s essay, “Political Conditions for a Force” (see page 15), and Thomas C. Schelling’s radical essay, “Strategy: A World Force in Operation” was included (see below).

- the use of nuclear weapons to inflict pain on offending nations,

- pre-positioning world forces in leading countries,

- placing a nation’s economic infrastructure under the authority of the world force,

- introducing biological agents into the community and using the antidote as political leverage

- introducing biological agents into the community and using the antidote as political leverage.

(Thomas C. Schelling, “Strategy: A World Force in Operation,” reprinted in The Strategy of World Order: Volume 3 - The United Nations (World Law Fund, 1966), pp,669, 682-684.)

(This same essay is published in International Military Force: Peace-Keeping in an Armed and Disarmed World, edited by Lincoln P. Bloomfield (Little, Brown and Company, 1964).

1964: Hans J. Morgenthau - one of the most noted scholar on international relations and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations - penned an essay on political conditions for a world force. He recognized the inseparable reality of global disarmament and world authority.

“Total disarmament requires as its corollary the existence of a supranational authority capable of committing organized force to the defense of the legal order and the political status quo. In other words, total disarmament and world government go hand in hand; they compliment each other. In a totally disarmed world the problem of an international police force ceases to exist and reappears in the form - new in its dimensions and old in its substance - of the police of a world government.”

(Hans J. Morgenthau, “Political Conditions for a Force,” reprinted in The Strategy of World Order: Volume 3 - The United Nations (World Law Fund, 1966), p.666.)

1964:  Italian diplomat Roberto Ducci recommended that the road to international security lay in regional units recognized by the UN Charter; NATO, the Organization of American States, OAU in Africa and SEATO in Southeast Asia. He also suggested that the United Nations undergo a “thorough overhaul” to ensure world order.

(Roberto Ducci, “The World Order in the Sixties,” reprinted in The Strategy of World Order: Volume 1 - Toward a Theory of War Prevention (World Law Fund, 1966), p.185.)

1964: The Washington Center of Foreign Policy Research, a division of the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, undertook a study for the US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. During the course of this project, seven authors produced seven essays to help guide the US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency in fleshing out what a “disarmed world” and an international force might look like.

(See, The United States in a Disarmed World: A Study of the U.S Outline for General and Complete Disarmament (The Johns Hopkins Press, 1966).)

(Louis B. Sohn, “Practical Steps Toward World Peace,” Peace is Possible: A Reader on World Order (Grossman Publishers, 1966), pp.302-311)

1965: The Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions published Keeping the World Disarmed by Arthur I. Waskow, suggesting an international police force. This police system would have the power to deal with boundary incursions, disarmament inspections, and operate on a graduated threat system based on deterrence first.

Two options were considered; First, the creation of a Disarmament Police Force pulled from the Big Four - USA, USSR, China, and the United Kingdom - as attached to the United Nations. But this arrangement, it was noted, could be undermined by a veto. The second option was an independent police force unattached to Great Powers. Waskow provided some thoughts on this,

“These units would be fully transnational, trained by the international police force itself, made up of men loyal to the international police force, and financed from its won funds. For these purposes, the international police force would need to have facilities fro recruiting limited numbers of men, training them in very specific tasks, inculcating in them loyalty to the international police force, and paying them out of its own funds. Small police training centers scattered around the world, some of them perhaps aboard ships on the high sea or on isolated islands, would be suitable for such purposes.”

 (Arthur I. Waskow, Keeping  the World Disarmed (Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions, 1965), p.70. This think tank was an arm of The Fund for the Republic, an entity funded through the Ford Foundation.)

1965: Marion H. McVitty, the representative of the United World Federalists at the United Nations, published a far-reaching essay on proposed rules for future UN peace-keeping. Here are some of her suggested rules.

1) “The United Nations should have control of the forces placed at its disposal.”

2) “The United Nations should have the right to internationalize, disarm, or otherwise neutralize local armed forces in the host territory.”

3) “The United Nations should be able to control unauthorized assistance from outside the area of UN operations.

4) “The United Nations should have competence over individuals opposing, or impeding, a UN mandate. Recalcitrant individuals involved in a particular emergency situation should be liable to UN apprehension, detention and disposition.”

(Marion H. McVitty, “Wanted: Rules to Guide UN Peace-Keeping Operations of the Future,” reprinted in The Strategy of World Order: Volume 3 - The United Nations (World Law Fund, 1966), pp.574-575.)

1966: Kenneth Boulding, the co-director of the Center for Research on Conflict Resolution and a Professor of Economics at the University of Michigan, wrote of a future harmonization.

“The United Nations represents the aspirations of mankind for unity; it embodies and legitimizes the enormous yearning to avoid the scourge of war; and it is the forerunner of the world government towards which all the long-run forces of history seem to be heading.”

(Kenneth Boulding, “Population and Poverty,” Peace is Possible: A Reader on World Order (Grossman, 1966), pp.51-52.)

1966: The Eighteen-Nations Committee on Disarmament (ENCD), which started in 1962 and met different points in the 1960s, released a report reminding the world community of its primary future goal: A treaty on general and complete disarmament. However, the Committee recognized that other disarmament issues currently on the table had to be considered first, such as nuclear non-proliferation and comprehensive ban on nuclear testing. As in past years, the ENCD voiced its desire to initiate a World Disarmament Conference.

1967: A group of consultant experts appointed by the UN Secretary-General to study the issue of general disarmament released a report on the role of nuclear proliferation to the problem of disarmament.

“The solution of the problem of ensuring security cannot be found in an increase in the number of States possessing nuclear weapons or, indeed, in the retention of nuclear weapons by the Powers currently possessing them. An agreement to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons as recommended by the United Nations, freely negotiated and genuinely observed, would therefore be a powerful step in the right direction, as would also an agreement on the reduction of existing nuclear arsenals.

Security for all countries of the world must be sought through the elimination of all stockpiles of nuclear weapons and the banning of their use, by way of general and complete disarmament.”-

  (The United Nations and Disarmament, 1945-1970 (United Nations, 1970), p.111.)

1968: The World Federalists of Canada presented a proposal to Canada’s Minister of External Affairs on August 14. This recommendation asked the government of Canada to undertake a world peace-keeping program. The proposal reads, in part,

“We propose that Canada should immediately take the initiative in forming within the United Nations a grouping of nations which might be called the World Peacemakers Association (WPA). These nations would pledge their support to UN peacekeeping operations, and train their forces with UN duties in mind. They would also train teams of mediators to help settle particular conflicts.

In return, these nations would ask the UN to provide for their security from aggression.”

(See, Lincoln P. Bloomfield, The Power to Keep the Peace: Today and in a World Without War (World Without War Council, 1964/1971), p.229.)

1969: Canadian Maj. General Frederick S. Carpenter recommended to a conference on “The Future of the United Nations,” that a United Nations stand-by force should be earmarked and trained at a Peacekeepers Staff College. Reporting on this, Lincoln P. Bloomfield writes,

“He recommended that some nation initially - it could be Canada - renounce unilateral use of its military force and turn them over to the UN for exclusive peacekeeping functions. He suggest that this nation ‘vacate’ its seat at the UN to avoid taking sides in disputes where it may serve a peacekeeping role, and to be ‘truly servants of the UN’.”

(See, Lincoln P. Bloomfield, The Power to Keep the Peace: Today and in a World Without War (World Without War Council, 1964/1971), p.231.)

(See Lincoln P. Bloomfield’s note on page 3, The Power to Keep Peace: Today and in a World Without War (World Without War Council, 1971, pp, 158-161)

1969: The Governments of the Soviet Union and the United States initiated bilateral talks on limiting strategic nuclear weapons. The United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution urging both countries to place a moratorium on nuclear weapon testing and deployment of “new offensive and defensive strategic nuclear-weapons systems.”

1969: Looking back on the work of disarmament in the 1960s, and with the activities of the ENCD in mind, the country of Romania recommended that a UN proclamation be made declaring 1970-1980 as the Disarmament Decade. In a note, the UN Secretary-General gave support to the idea,

“I would accordingly propose that the Members of the United Nations decide to dedicate the decade of he 1970s, which has already been designated as the Second United Nations Development Decade, as a Disarmament Decade. I would hope that the members of the General Assembly could establish a specific timetable for dealing with all aspects of the problem of arms control and disarmament.”

This proposal carried and passed, and the world looked to a bright future - a new decade free from weapons, free from war, and working together for peace.
It was to be the dawning of a New Age. FC

10. International Conciliation, September 1962, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, p.11.