Mar. 14, 1962 - The United Nations-sponsored disarmament conference opened today at Geneva after a chilling Big Three foreign ministers’ meeting where the Soviet Union rejected the idea of international inspection. As far as the U.S. and Britain are concerned, it is essential that any agreement on disarmament, particularly on a prohibition of tests of nuclear weapons, be subject to inspection to ensure that its terms are observed. Secretary of State Dean Rusk and the Earl of Home, British Foreign Secretary, reiterated the Western position to Andrei A. Gromyko, Soviet Foreign Minister, at their meeting in the British villa just outside Geneva. The three ministers took two turns each in speaking about the problem of inspection without, as U.S. officials put it later, “closing any gaps.”
