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

Department of State Atomic Energy Files

Memorandum of Conversation, by Mr. Edmund A. Gullion, Special Assistant to the Under secretary of State (Lovett)

top secret

[Washington,] December 20, 1947.

Participants:	Senator Hickenlooper
	Edmund A. Gullion—U
	Carroll L. Wilson—AEC

At Mr. Lovett’s request I arranged to see Senator Hickenlooper, on December 20, 1947, to bring him up-to-date on our talks with the British and Canadians. I saw Mr. Carroll Wilson at lunch preceding the visit to Senator Hickenlooper and, inasmuch as Mr. Wilson had been a member of the working group on raw materials which had worked out the proposed allocation formula, I asked him to accompany me.

We exposed to Senator Hickenlooper in some detail the progress so far achieved by CPC and its ad hoc sub-groups on information, raw materials, and “drafting.” Senator Hickenlooper expressed himself as satisfied that considerable progress had been made and that the proposed allocation formula might be as good as we could hope for. He did not appear to be too happy about it. Although he had not expected us to be able to secure the whole of the stocks in Britain, he believed that any arrangement which left any quantity in the U.K. had one defect: namely, that in the event of a swing to the left by the British there might be some danger of a diversion, or surrender, or barter of these stockpiles. He agreed that this risk was minimal, that it was becoming less and that it represented, at worst, a calculated risk to be run in making any arrangement. He appeared somewhat disappointed that the British had not been induced to store more materials in Canada.

With reference to the instrument which would evidence any final understanding, the Senator thought that an agreed minute might be satisfactory. He referred to the position of Senator Vandenberg and the misgivings he had about what might amount to a secret agreement not shown to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He suggested that the Atomic Energy Commission had authority, under the Atomic Energy Act, to make arrangements with respect to information policy and procurement of raw materials. The best arrangement might be for the Commission to make a statement in the Committee as to how it would proceed, or even for it to make its own arrangements with its opposite numbers in the British and Canadian atomic energy set-ups. Mr. Wilson and I assured the Senator that this possibility was being investigated.

On the whole, I should say that the Senator will support the arrangements we have so far reached. I think it is important that Secretary Forrestal’s approval be obtained and communicated to Senator Hickenlooper. I do not believe, however, that the Committee as a whole will want to take jurisdiction, or be put into the position of either approving or disapproving solutions finally achieved by the Executive agencies concerned.