Department of State Atomic Energy Files
Memorandum of Conversation, by the United Secretary of State (Lovett)
| Participants: | Sir Oliver Franks, British Ambassador |
| Mr. Lovett, Acting Secretary of State | |
| Mr. Hickerson, EUR | |
| Mr. Butterworth,1 FE |
Sir Oliver Franks, the British Ambassador, came in to see me at his request at 11:30 a. m., today to discuss several matters, among which was atomic energy. He started out by saying that he had no instructions from his Government to approach me and that he was doing so entirely on his own initiative.
He said that he had had conversations recently with Lilienthal, Oppenheimer,2 and Sir John Cockcroft. These conversations had led him to the conclusion that the exchange of information and cooperation between our two Governments is not as good as it should be, and indeed not as good as it might be if the present understandings were interpreted somewhat more liberally. He therefore raised the question of whether it might not be desirable for the two Governments to exchange views on opening this whole question and seeing whether it would not be possible and desirable to expand their cooperation in this field.
Sir Oliver pointed out as an example of one of the questions which might usefully be discussed in such an exchange that they are going ahead in the UK with certain things; with US cooperation and assistance the British can go into production in a short time; but even without US assistance and cooperation in a somewhat longer time the British still expect their efforts to succeed and to be able to go into production. He said that this last fact had not, in his opinion, been fully understood in the US. He said that there had been a number of important developments since our conversations last winter which, in his opinion, might well justify a fresh examination of this whole question and he inquired what I thought about this.
I told Sir Oliver that there had been a number of important developments. Among these were the complete rejection of international control of atomic energy by the Russians, and, as a consequence, it appeared that no international agreement was likely for an indefinite period of time. Another important development was the election in [Page 786] the US. In consequence of the election we will have a change in the heads of the committees in Congress which have been dealing with this matter.
I went on to say that we have the continued dispute in this country between the military and the Atomic Energy Commission over custody. There are, moreover, certain problems and uncertainties with regard to the Atomic Energy Commission itself.
I told Sir Oliver that, in my opinion, it would be a mistake for the US and UK Governments to have a general exchange of views on atomic energy at the present time. I suggested that we put this question aside at least for another couple of months or so until the Congressional Committees have been organized and get going and some of these other matters have been clarified.
Sir Oliver at once agreed with me that this would be desirable and said that as he had pointed out in the beginning he had raised this question entirely on his own initiative.
- W. Walton Butterworth, Director of the Office of Far Eastern Affairs.↩
- Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer, Chairman of the General Advisory Committee of the United States Atomic Energy Commission; Director of the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey; Director of Los Alamos Laboratories, Manhattan Engineer District, 1943–1945.↩