Foreign Relations of the United States, 1947, General; The United Nations, Volume I

Department of State Atomic Energy Files

The Under Secretary of State (Acheson) to the Ambassador in Belgium (Kirk)

top secret

Washington, June 27, 1947.

Dear Alan: I should like to confirm, informally, some of the things we discussed with respect to atomic energy matters during your recent visit.

You mentioned, as you had previously done in your telegrams, that the Belgians could not readily understand our strong desire to maintain secrecy on the US–UK–Belgian procurement agreement, since so many of the facts seemed to be already well known in Belgium. Our principal reason for maintaining secrecy is to avoid giving any opportunity to the Soviet Union to distort our motives and use this information in a propaganda campaign, or in United Nations deliberations, to bolster a charge against us of bad faith and unilateral self-serving, at the same time that we are ostensibly trying to promote multilateral control of atomic energy.

I hope that you can personally make clear to Spaak, quite informally, that our attitude with respect to publicity on agreements at this time is affected by our apprehensions about Soviet Union foreign policy and tactics in UNAEC. This relation is the situation to which I referred, too indirectly, in paragraph 12 of my telegram No. 683¹ and which was not understood by you or Spaak.

It is difficult, if not impossible, at this stage to synthesize all the impressions of the Russians held by various persons who deal with them or work on the Soviet Union problem in the Department, UN, the War and Navy Departments and then our Missions abroad and to peg that composite as an official government estimate of Russian policy.

What I am about to describe is merely a climate of opinion here more or less reflected in official thinking, as in the so-called Ridgway memorandum (SC 210—“Objectives of USSR atomic energy and disarmament policies”, April 7, 1947)² which is being sent to you under separate cover. It should also answer some of the questions raised in Achilles’ useful telegrams.

Although we have not lost hope of achieving an international control regime and intend to continue the effort in the AEC as long as we can, I, personally, and most other observers are much discouraged about present prospects and fear that the Russians’ present line is to filibuster in the United Nations, while at the same time they try:

a) To attract support from anxious minority opinion in other United Nations atomic energy commission countries;

b) To break down existing US–UK arrangements for procurement of raw materials by tactics such as they are pursuing in Belgium;

c) To infiltrate research and control programs in any or all other countries;

d) To hasten their own development of atomic weapons; and

e) To extend their area of effective political domination, as in Hungary.

The longer the filibuster can be prolonged, the more they can hope to play upon the fears and idealism of that part of the population of interested countries which is desperately anxious to preserve peace and which is receptive to Soviet professions and propaganda.

In the early fall the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission is to make its second report to the Security Council; we had planned and hoped that by that time the essential points of difference between the Soviet Union and the countries supporting the original December 31 proposals³ would have been isolated, and that it would be clear just what, if any, possibility existed of agreement on these points, so that if negotiations were to fail or to drift into nothingness, it would be clear to the world where the responsibility lay.

Since we have been pursuing that policy it has been difficult to bring the Russians down to brass tacks or to prevent them from taking refuge in discussions of comparatively minor phases of an international convention. They have recently given some details as to how they would expect inspection systems to function, but it is clear that they do not intend to abandon their insistence on the destruction of atomic bomb stocks before adoption of an international control convention. I am confident, that the United States would never agree to this. Furthermore, the Soviet Union is just as adamant as ever about not accepting international ownership or genuine control of important facilities.

In view of all the above, I think it would be a grave error for Spaak at this time to volunteer any information about Section 9–A or the rest of the Agreement. If his hand is forced, we recommend that he make a statement along the lines of that proposed in your telegram No. 67 of January 17,⁴ which can possibly be amplified by the material in the statement prepared some time ago by M. Sengier for the stockholders of Union Minière. I can appreciate that you would feel more secure if the text of some approved statement were actually in hand and I am having one worked up for you.

I assume that you will be seeing Spaak shortly after your return and I think it would be wise if you were to review the whole situation with him informally in view of the foregoing considerations and your conversations with the President, the Secretary and the members of the Atomic Energy Commission.⁵ Of course you should avoid giving Spaak any impression that you are presenting a crystallized hard-and-fast policy on Russia. Also, we, the British and the Belgians must avoid giving the Russians the opportunity of accusing us of bad faith or of selling the UN negotiations short.

I agree with your suggestion that we should deflate the Belgians optimistic conception of the imminence of commercial and industrial use of atomic energy. I shall try to have you sent material from time to time to help you in this respect. I am now waiting to have the Atomic Energy Commission’s views on the question of sending a qualified scientist to Belgium to make as clear as he can, within the limitations of the McMahon Act, just what the prospects are. We do not, of course, wish to encourage a reciprocal visit, inasmuch as the Act would probably make it difficult for us to make the mission worth while from the Belgians’ point of view.

I think that your suggestion about dissemination of the Canadian Royal Commission’s Report on Espionage is a good one, if the hand of the US is not too obvious in the promotion.

With kindest personal regards,

[File copy not signed]

1. May 14, 9 p.m., p. 812.
2. SC 210, not printed, was a revision, prepared in the Department of State, of a memorandum of February 3, by Lt. Gen. Matthew B. Ridgway, United States Army Representative on the United Nations Military Staff Committee; for text of the Ridgway memorandum, see p. 402.
3. Reference is to the First Report of the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission to the Security Council, adopted by the UNAEC on December 31, 1946; for text, see United Nations, Official Records of the Atomic Energy Commission, First Year, Special Supplement, Report to the Security Council (1946).
4. See footnote 1, p. 793.
5. For the record of Ambassador Kirk’s meeting with members of the United States Atomic Energy Commission, see supra. No record of conversations with President Truman or Secretary Marshall during the period of Kirk’s visit to the United States have been found in the files of the Department of State.