841.6350/12–447: Telegram
The Acting Secretary of State to the Ambassador in the United Kingdom (Douglas)
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5102. Eyes only for Ambassador—Personal from Lovett. The Dept with the concurrence of Atomic Energy Commission, Dept of National Defense, Research and Development Planning Board, has prepared plans for negotiations with British and Canadians designed to remove present misunderstandings and to increase amount of uranium available to United States. The negotiations will involve questions familiar to you which have been outstanding since end of war and settlement of which has been complicated by passage of Atomic Energy Act of 1946. Our recommendations for talks are contained in my immediately following wire which is for your discreet use in conjunction with what follows. It should not be shown to British until I confirm. I anticipate that Joint Congressional Committee on Atomic Energy will endorse our projected line at meeting tomorrow.
However, Senator Vandenberg and some others strongly feel that [Page 880] further aid to Britain, or provision for the UK in ERP, should be conditioned on Britain’s meeting our terms with respect to allocation of atomic raw materials and other aspects of future cooperation. Particularly they would insist on dispersal of most of stockpile now lying in UK to this hemisphere. Dept has reason to believe that this objective can be attained by normal diplomatic negotiations without injecting matter into the Marshall Plan which would have series of most unfortunate consequences: (a) Corroboration of Communist propaganda that Marshall Plan was means of fastening US atom monopoly. (b) Throwing into open debate the war-time arrangements among US, UK, and Canada with (c) possible effect of endangering passage of ERP itself. Senator Vandenberg, however, has agreed to hold off any action in this regard, insofar as he can, while negotiations with the British and Canadians are under way. We have in effect until Dec 17 to secure an arrangement with British satisfactory to us and one which Senator Vandenberg and his supporters would endorse. We may actually hold preliminary meeting with British and Canadians this week-end. In the interest of saving time, I have advised the British and Canadians of project of consultations in advance of action of Joint Congressional Committee but have not felt authorized to reveal in detail our maximum and minimum limits of offer nor objectives to be sought except that I have made clear that we think British stockpile should be reduced in our favor. I explained to Inverchapel that we had for a long period been working on a plan to adjust our differences and that, as my predecessor had explained to his Embassy, the time would be ripe for tackling the matter when the second report of the UN Atomic Energy Commission had been rendered. This time had now arrived but we had to accelerate our time table because of desire to keep atomic energy problems out of the gears of ERP. It is my thought that you may be able to explain our position vis-à-vis Congress to the British in a manner which could not possibly be conveyed second hand through Inverchapel’s cables. I have therefore indicated that you would be available to discuss scope and timing of negotiations. The British say that they are in some doubt as to what range projected talks would cover and consequently uncertain about which advisers should be dispatched to this country. The recommendations in my following cable will give you an idea of the scope of the negotiations. We envisage that this meeting is called for not only because it is time we agreed on allocations of materials but because of failure of United Nations Atomic Energy Commission after 15 months of negotiations to reconcile important differences with the Soviets. As you will see from following wire, inducements we offer British are (a) reaffirmation of our special relationship in atomic energy matters, whatever attraction this may hold for them, and (b) the [Page 881] possibility of discussing interchange of information they have desired for over a year. On last point, the outline is not very positive primarily because it was drafted with great care to elicit support of Congress which might not look with favor on project to buy raw materials with information. The provisions of the Atomic Energy Act, especially Section 10, still constitute our main difficulty. We hope that information desired by British can be held to come within the category of basic and scientific, exchange of which is permitted. Moreover, to the extent that interchange of information can be shown to be mutually beneficial, we could demonstrate that such an exchange would “promote the national security” (see Section 10 of the Act) and thus probably be permitted within the terms of the Act. We cannot, however, give any assurances to British now about what information we can offer until we have learned in course of negotiations just what they want. However, in the course of recent official talks among American, British and Canadian scientists, with respect to declassification of secret data, Dr. Cockroft,1 representing the British, was asked for, and supplied specifications of data required by them. It is my understanding that there is considerable hope of our being able to meet these requests.
We believe that British delegation should be prepared to discuss allocations, the program of development contemplated by Great Britain, the amount of stocks to be required in the UK, and an interchange of information policy. We wish to approach problem with reference to the existing world situation and not on the basis of controverted war-time agreements. For this reason, and because any agreement with respect to limited international cooperation in atomic energy has a strong military connotation, the British delegation should be able to speak with knowledge of British security requirements. All these talks would be conducted within framework of the Combined Policy Committee of which the chief British representatives are the British Ambassador, Adm. Sir Henry Moore, and Sir Gordon Munro. There could however be parallel consultations with advisers on a wide and informal basis. Finally it is possible that some communiqué may be issued on results of negotiations, and the impact on United Nations Atomic Energy Commission deliberations would have to be considered. Of course consideration of the action of the three countries with respect to future policy in the UN would not be discussed solely in the CPC but through diplomatic channels and among the respective delegations to the UN Atomic Energy Commission.
- Dr. John D. Cockroft, Director of the Atomic Energy Research Establishment at Harwell.↩