MAY 1 9 107;
SIPRI

STOCKHOLM INTERNATIONAL PEACE
RESEARCH INSTITUTE

Chairman: Prof. Gunnar Myrdal Sveavagen 166
Director: Mr. Robert Neild $-11346 Stockholm
SWEDEN

Telephone: #Feeee 15 1900
Cables: Peaceresearch

Professor Joshua Lederberg May 6, 1971.
Stanford University Medical Center RRN/GR
Department of Genetics

STANFORD, Ca. 94305

U.S.A.

Dear Professor Lederberg,

Thank you for your letter of April 30.

I think you will find that trade in chemical agents and weapons
is pretty tightly controlled by governments, as indeed is all types of
trade in weapons nowadays, so that the problem is to ensure that
governments behave in a restrained manner. There may be scope for
unilateral action. The chemical corps might be more tightly restrained
from spreading its doctrines abroad, and so on, But one would have
to think very carefully before setting about open multilateral action,
lest one aroused sentiments of discrimination which were counter-
productive in their effects.

I am interested in your thought that the "encapsulation of
nuclear power" is a possibility, albeit an optimistic one. If that hap-
pens, then of course I agree that chemical weapons could become de-
cisive in the balance of strength between the nuclear powers and
verification would become important for exactly the same reasons that
we argue it may now be important to "middle powers". In short, the
nuclear powers would cease effectively to be nuclear powers and
would become middle powers in our classification.

Iam passing on copies of our correspondence to Julian Perry
Robinson who will be dealing with binaries in a forthcoming volume

of our CBW study and who, as you know, has a very wide interest in
the whole field.

Yours sincerely,

R.R. Neild