Department of State Atomic Energy Files
Memorandum by the Joint Secretaries of the Combined Policy Committee (Groves, Makins, Bateman)
Statement to Combined Policy Committee on Combined Development Trust Financial Policy
1. Under the Agreement and Declaration of Trust, the Combined Development Trust is directed, among other things, (2(e)), to “acquire and undertake the treatment and disposal of uranium and thorium and uranium and thorium materials.”82
2. Under paragraph 3(l) “The Trust shall carry out its functions under the direction and guidance of the Combined Policy Committee, and as its agent, and all uranium and thorium and all uranium and thorium ores and supplies and other property acquired by the Trust shall be held by it in trust for the two Governments jointly, and disposed of or otherwise dealt with in accordance with the direction of the Combined Policy Committee.”
3. The financial provision of the Trust Agreement is as follows: “All funds properly required by the Trust for the performance of its functions shall be provided as to one-half by the Government of the United States of America and the other half by the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.”
4. The only source from which the Trust has received significant quantities of raw material is the Belgian Congo under the Tripartite Agreement signed on September 26th, 1944.83
[Page 1255]5. The quantities received by the Trust from this source and their cost, including freight, are approximately as follows:—
| (1) Before V–J Day. | |
| 293 short tons of contained U3O8 | $885,468. |
| (2) Between V–J Day and March 31st. | |
| 850 short tons of contained U3O8 | $2,582,260. |
| (3) Since April 1st. | |
| 1,969 short tons of contained U3O8 | $7,113,956. |
6. An agreement on allocation of raw material until the end of 1946 was reached on May 13th.84 This allocation was retroactive to V–J Day. Pending this agreement, all the material had been shipped to the United States.
7. The British Government have raised the question of the financial consequences of the agreement about allocation. They have pointed out that the expenditure of the Trust is of three kinds:
- (1)
- Administrative.
- (2)
- Research, Development, and Geological Survey work.
- (3)
- Acquisition of Raw Material.
No issue arises on the expenditure in the first two categories which, it is agreed, should continue to be borne in equal shares by the two Governments. Nor does any issue arise in regard to the material shipped to the United States of America prior to V–J Day, which was used in the production of weapons against the common enemy.
8. The only question raised by the British Government concerns the raw material which was received from the Congo since V–J Day and which was the subject of the allocation agreement of May 13th. They believe that the right course is for each Government to pay the Trust for the raw material which that Government has actually received or will receive under the allocation agreement. Otherwise one Government is in the position of financing the acquisition of material by the other. The British Government suggest that this is inequitable, and that, after the end of the war, and, the termination of the special arrangements between the two Governments for Lend-Lease and Reciprocal Aid, the fair principle is that each Government should pay for the raw material which is allocated to it.
9. This matter was brought up before the trustees of the Combined Development Trust but they agreed that it was not a matter lying within the scope of their authority.
- For text of the Agreement and Declaration of Trust, signed by President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill on June 13, 1944, see Foreign Relations, 1944, vol. ii, p. 1026.↩
- For text, see Foreign Relations, 1944, vol. ii, pp. 1029–1030.↩
- Ante, p. 1246.↩