Policy Planning Staff Files1
The Deputy United States Representative on the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission (Osborn) to the Director of the Office of Special Political Affairs (Rusk)2
Dear Mr. Rusk: Following is a memorandum of a conversation with General McNaughton on various atomic energy matters on October 27, 1947:
1. Canadian-American Relations:
General McNaughton has been cheerfully carrying out the close liaison between the Canadian Commission and particularly their scientists at the Chalk River plant, and scientists of the United States government under Mr. Lilienthal, giving Mr. Lilienthal’s people any and all information on what they are doing in Canada, including new developments. There are two U.S. representatives at the Chalk River plant and they are kept fully informed. General McNaughton points out that this is entirely a one-way liaison. Under the McMahon Act no classified information is permitted to go from the United States to Canada. He considers the McMahon Act very badly drawn in this respect, and while he has been able to sit on the lid effectively, the situation is now causing him deep anxiety. He feels he cannot go on quite in this way very much longer.
2. Canadian-British-U.S. arrangements:
General McNaughton feels very strongly that in these matters Canada must negotiate directly with Washington. The defense of North America is a mutual concern of the two countries. Together they constitute the citadel which protects all Western European civilization. England is not in this citadel, though dependent on it. The views of her people cannot help but be disturbed by their immediate proximity to Europe, by their staggering problems and by their still fresh recollection of their previous position. It is therefore essential that Canada and the United States negotiate these matters together directly, and [Page 849] General McNaughton is disturbed that apparently some conversations have been going on in London on this matter. I have told him that my only knowledge is that both the British and Canadian Embassies in Washington were advised of the possibility of a statement by the President, and that this statement was put off, but that I am not in on these negotiations and may be quite uninformed.
General McNaughton points out that England is like a man groggy from blows to the solar plexus and the jaw, and we should understand and sympathize with her inability to plan coherently for the future when she is in this position and in her present difficulties. He thinks those British who believe atomic power to be of importance in the next decade or so are wholly unrealistic.
3. The situation with respect to the Soviet Union:
General McNaughton feels that if it were not for the U.S. possession of the atomic bomb the Soviet Union would by now have overrun Europe. (As I have already reported, this view is shared by deRose of France,3 and with respect to the Arab States, by el-Khouri of Syria4).
General McNaughton feels that the Soviet Union is making very slow progress with the atomic bomb. Reports indicate they have large numbers of miners hand-picking the dumps in the uranium mines of Czechoslovakia, and that the amount of material they can get in this way must be wholly insufficient. He cannot imagine their using manpower for this purpose if they had discovered any real source of supply within the Soviet Union, and he tends to the view that no adequate source of supply has been found in the Soviet Union as yet. He thinks that the Kremlin recognize their inability to prepare for atomic warfare in any near future. He thinks they might make enough material for a single bomb in the next five or ten years, but not enough to support an atomic war. He thinks the government of the Soviet, highly centralized in Moscow and Leningrad, is very conscious of the chaos which would result if those two cities were destroyed. Hence that any steps taken by the Soviets will be short of war.
In this situation he stands, as always, for the most absolute firmness, a steady marching forward along the constructive lines laid down by all of us, without being diverted by propaganda and the red herrings of the Soviets.
4. Activity proposed for United Nations Atomic Energy Commission:
General McNaughton feels that it would be wholly unwise to go forward with plans for stages, financing or strategic balance until [Page 850] the Soviet Union is ready to accept an international agency as defined in the Second Report.5 However, he feels that we should go through with the working paper on staffing and organization. He sees difficulties in doing so, and some dangers, but thinks that the difficulties and dangers are subordinate to the importance of having a plan which is complete except for those matters which must be determined at the time the treaty is drawn, namely, financing, strategic balance and stages. His reason for desiring to complete the plan to that point is that so long as there is any chance of a turn in Soviet affairs which would make it possible for them to join in a treaty, we should be ready to take advantage of that opportunity, which probably would not last long. He thinks there is an outside possibility of such an opportunity in the next four or five years, because there might be a possibility of some sort of a breakdown in the Soviet government giving us a real chance for negotiations. There is little possibility that the Soviet would break off relations with the West because if they did so they would be left in ignorance of the technological developments which are proceeding far faster than in the Soviet. However remote these possibilities, we should be ready for them.
We should stand absolutely firm on the Second Report and there is no use whatever discussing the Soviet differences in points of view. It would get us nowhere and would only be taken by them as a sign of weakness. General McNaughton believes that weakness is the one thing likely to lead to war. He thinks that the Kremlin is entirely realistic in its recognition that the great technological development of North America would inevitably result in defeat for them at this time.
Finally, he thinks it vital that there should never be any suspicion of U.S. withdrawal of their offer. The time for splitting the world into two camps has not come yet. If it comes, we will face it then. Meanwhile, we must try our utmost not to let a break occur.
Yours sincerely,
- Lot 64D563, files of the Policy Planning Staff, Department of State, 1947–1953.↩
- Transmitted by Gullion to Lovett and Kennan on November 24.↩
- François de Rose of the French Delegation to the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission.↩
- Faris el-Khouri, Syrian Representative on the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission.↩
- Reference is to the second report of the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission; for text, see United Nations, Official Records of the Atomic Energy Commission, Second Year, Special Supplement, The Second Report of the Atomic Energy Commission to the Security Council, September 11, 1947; also printed as Department of State Publication 2932 (Washington, Government Printing Office, 1947).↩