600.0012/11–1951
Memorandum by the Legal Adviser of the Department of State (Fisher) to the Ambassador at Large (Jessup)1
Subject: Disarmament Commission
If the new Disarmament Commission is to make real progress after it is set up, a lot of new work on atomic energy control is going to be [Page 589] needed. The present United Nations plan is itself incomplete, and much would have to be done to put it into shape if the ideas so far embodied in it were going to be the basis of agreement among states. However, it seems highly unlikely that agreement will be reached on the basis of the present United Nations plan’s elements. It would appear, actually, that some of the assumptions underlying the United Nations plan have been changed a good deal by the passage of time since the Baruch proposals were put forward in 1946. The expectation of that time that the United States monopoly on atomic weapons would last for a number of years has of course been eliminated by the events of 1950 and 1951. The belief that atomic energy might early be exploited on a large scale for industrial and other peaceful uses has not been fulfilled.
Real consideration needs to be given to methods of atomic energy control that would be as effective as the provisions contemplated in the United Nations plan and at the same time more susceptible of agreement. Are ownership and management essential if a control system has rigorous and thorough inspection? Are control treaty provisions on sanctions likely to be significant? In the absence of world government, when the most that control can do is to operate a reliable warning and alarm system, is or is not the veto an element that could be accepted in a control system if the system is set up in such a way that exercise of the veto cannot be represented as the exercise of a normal prerogative but instead constitutes a virtual act of war in violation of the most solemn treaty obligations? These seem to me some of the questions that need to be examined most closely.
When the disarmament resolution emerges from the Assembly it may still contain the provision on atomic energy control that is included in the draft now submitted to Committee One. Under that provision the Commission is not directed or urged to look for plans other than the United Nations plan. The United States, which above all other countries is in a position from the technological and personnel point of view to take the lead in new explorations, should start now to see whether any alternative plans can be devised and put before the Commission later for its consideration. The United States would not be making a serious effort in the disarmament field if it sat back and waited for others to produce suggestions on alternative methods of atomic energy control.
I would like to suggest the creation of a United States task force to start work on this problem now, with membership perhaps drawn from the State and Defense Departments, the Atomic Energy Commission, engineering and industrial concerns, and the scientific professions, together with a few lay members of recognized competence and judgment.
- Ambassador Jessup was a Member of the United States Delegation to the General Assembly, Mr. Fisher served as an Adviser to the Delegation.↩