501.BC Atomic/11–446
The United States Representative on the Atomic Energy Commission (Baruch) to the Secretary of State
My Dear Mr. Secretary: On September 17 I addressed to you and the President a memorandum asking for a statement of policy to govern our action in the U.S. Delegation to the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission.
[Page 991]At that time we were trying, and have since been pursuing the course of discussing the scientific and technical aspects of control, largely avoiding the political questions except as they arose by implication. At the middle of September it was clear to us that we could continue that course another month or two. There have been some unexpected delays, but we will certainly finish this phase of the work by the end of November at the latest. We now have two choices, as we pointed out:
- a.
- To push into the political issues, or
- b.
- To slow down the whole work of the Commission, going to the extreme of recess or adjournment.
At this moment we can reasonably expect a ten-to-two vote favoring our position on matters of policy. So far as our own problem is concerned, it is thoroughly feasible to move into the policy questions and attempt an agreed statement of policy to be completed by the year end—again on a ten-to-two basis. Again, purely from our own point of view, we will face a considerable delay and a good deal of uncertainty if we wait until after the first of the year. At that time three members of the Commission—Egypt, Mexico, and The Netherlands—all strong supporters of ours, will be replaced by presently unknown nations. These new delegations would require a long period of education, in all probability. It would be helpful to have even a ten-to-two vote on matters of principle arrived at during the present membership of the Commission. We couldn’t look for any more than that as a result of the changes at the year end in the personnel of the Commission.
It is our thought to start immediately our staff work in concluding our views on the statements of policy and the matters to be covered by a ten-to-two interim report by the end of the year. We will need this month to complete the policy statement and to obtain clearances.
You probably have clearly in mind the original letter of September 17, but an additional copy is readily available in any event.
Incidentally, the Molotov move made here is a neat political maneuver which was implicit in the Russian attitude when I wrote to Dean Acheson on June 23. For the moment Molotov grabbed the initiative, but I think our people will see through the maneuver and that in the end he will not be the gainer. It may be that the maneuver is designed to back out of the commitment on controls and safeguards included in the Moscow Declaration and the January Assembly Resolution on atomic energy. We may attach undue importance to our part of the incident because early in our sessions we pointed out to Mr. Gromyko the ridiculous character of the Russian plan in that it was a proposal for unilateral disarmament and we told him we wondered whether [Page 992] he was going to match the proposal with a proposal to demobilize nine-tenths of the Red Army. I think Senator Austin is handling the matter very well and of course we will keep in closest possible contact to insure that there is no unintentional “crossing of wires.”
In view of the time and membership problem mentioned above, we will need a prompt decision. In the alternate, we will face a long delay—quite certainly six months—before the issue is joined on the political matters and even an interim report made to the Security Council or the Assembly.
Sincerely yours,