Subject: Cooperation With The United Kingdom and Canada on
Atomic Energy Matters
The Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission has requested that an early
meeting be called of the Special Committee of the National Security Council
on Atomic Energy3 to discuss the following:
Attached hereto for consideration in this connection are a statement
expressing the views of the Atomic Energy Commission on cooperation in the
field of atomic energy with the United Kingdom and Canada, and a draft
amendment to the Atomic Energy Act, prepared in the Atomic Energy
Commission.
[Annex]
Statement Prepared by the Atomic Energy
Commission
top secret
[Washington,] May 18, 1951.
Views of the Atomic Energy Commission on
Cooperation in the Field of Atomic Energy
1. The Atomic Energy Commission would like to set forth its conception of
a desirable relationship among the United States, the United Kingdom and
Canada, and certain other countries in atomic energy matters.
2. Under the existing Modus Vivendi established in
1948,4 vexing problems have arisen. Lack
of a durable solution to these problems
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has hampered the Commission in the accomplishment
of its tasks and recently has not provided the assurance to the
Commission that there will be continuity in the supply of ores for the
production of fissionable material within the United States. Since the
beginning of 1950, there has been merely an ad
hoc annual decision on the allocation of raw material pending
the solution of the larger problem of our relationship with the United
Kingdom and Canada. As the special committee of the National Security
Council stated to the President on October 2nd, 1950, in connection with
the program for expansion of fissionable material:5 “The proposed expansion
program is in accord with, and is limited by the foreseeable supply of
uranium ore. In this regard, it is recognized that to facilitate
carrying this program forward successfully, the problem of cooperation
with the United Kingdom and Canada in the field of atomic energy needs
to be resolved.”
3. During the next four or five years the United States is required, for
the attainment of aims consistent with its general policy to:
“Strengthen the orientation toward the United States of the
non-Soviet nations; and help such of those nations as are able and
willing to make an important contribution to United States security,
to increase their economic and political stability and their
military capability.” (See NSC 68,
par. 21 d)6
4. The United Kingdom and Canada are among the non-Soviet nations able
and willing to make an important contribution to United States security.
While the USSR remains a major menace to the collective security of the
non-Soviet nations (a situation which is expected to persist at least
for the next four or five years), there is little danger that either the
United Kingdom or Canada will deem it desirable to gain advantage over
the United States in any field if the collective strength is thereby
impaired. For this period, in short, co operation among the three
nations, rather than competition, appears to be the desirable policy in
order to avoid wasteful duplication and to add to the collective
strength in view of the common threat from the U.S.S.R.
5. In these circumstances it is to be expected, for the next four or five
years, that each of the three nations will encounter occasional
opportunities in many different fields to increase its individual
security or the collective security by acts of assistance to, or
cooperation with, one or both of the others. In fields other than atomic
energy, arrangements and procedures to facilitate the recognition and
exploitation of such opportunities as they arise from time to time
appear
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to be well-developed.
In the field of military preparedness with conventional armaments, for
example, there appears to exist a satisfactory relationship, refined by
years of practice, which enables the three nations to seize promptly and
exploit vigorously each evident opportunity for increasing the
collective security by cooperation or mutual assistance.
6. It is the Commission’s hope that a tripartite
relationship may be established which will enable the United States
to take prompt advantage of every opportunity to increase its
security by assisting, cooperating with, or obtaining assistance
from the United Kingdom and Canada in the whole field of atomic
energy.
7. The existing Modus Vivendi has not established
a satisfactory relationship with the United Kingdom and Canada. While it
has served a purpose in certain areas, it has failed to serve a purpose
in many other areas.
8. In the field of procurement of uranium ore, a cooperative arrangement
among the three nations has operated successfully and smoothly for the
past eight years. The allocation of ores among the three nations, in
accordance with the needs of their respective programs, was made an ad hoc agreement in 1950. There is as yet no
agreement for 1951.7 Long-term understandings to assure the
necessary allocation of raw materials to the United States are
lacking.
9. The control of secret information jointly held has proceeded fairly
smoothly, but now faces a practical difficulty of increasing magnitude.
The three nations have a common concern to withhold from the USSR and
its satellites information and ideas which might aid the atomic energy
program of the USSR. At the end of the war it was possible to define
certain bodies of classified information held by all three nations, or
by pairs of them, and to set up procedures for ensuring that none of
this knowledge should be made public except by joint consent. Through
obsolescence, compromise, and progress, these bodies of common
information have continually become smaller during the past five years,
relative to the total classified atomic energy information in each of
the three countries. There appears now to be a substantial and growing
danger that any one of the three nations may, out of ignorance of the
common interest, allow the publication of information which another of
them has good reason to withhold. Uniform standards of classification
and declassification are clearly desirable; if the standards are to be
kept uniform in an expanding field of knowledge there must be enough
interchange of information to enable each party to recognize what the
others think should be kept secret.
10. Control of the export of materials and devices which might be
specifically useful to the atomic energy program of the USSR has
[Page 725]
also proceeded fairly
smoothly, but now also faces a growing practical difficulty of the same
sort.
11. The discussions among scientists and engineers that have taken place
within the Technical Cooperation Program established in 1948 under the
Modus Vivendi, although strictly limited in
scope and awkward in administration, have yielded a variety of
information and ideas useful more or less immediately to the Commission
program. The other two nations report that these exchanges of
information and ideas have likewise been of assistance to them. It is
the Commission’s experience and conviction, based in part on the
Technical Cooperation Program, that the United States has much to gain
from the United Kingdom and Canada by a more extensive program of
cooperation on subjects of common interest, so administered as to avoid
delays and awkwardness. This would accelerate the technical programs of
all three countries to the advantage of the collective security. A large
number of specific cases, ranging from basic research to weapons
technology, can be adduced to support this view.
12. The NRX reactor at Chalk River has been used by the United States
under the terms of the existing Modus Vivendi, or
under ad hoc arrangements for high intensity
irradiations which could not be done within the United States. These
irradiations have enabled the Commission to proceed more quickly and
more surely with its tasks of basic research, reactor design and
development.
13. The existing Modus Vivendi makes no provision
for cooperation or mutual assistance in the weapons field, and the
Technical Cooperation Program has strictly excluded any reference to
this field. In this very field, however, there is now a conspicuous
opportunity to which the Department of Defense has called attention:
facilities for producing fissionable material are so distributed between
the United Kingdom and the United States that each nation can increase
the effectiveness of its own stockpile of atomic weapons, thus
increasing also the collective security by an exchange of United Kingdom
plutonium for United States U–235 or for finished composite weapons;
such an exchange appears to be attractive to both parties over some
range of possible exchange ratios. The planned production of interesting
quantities of plutonium by Canada, and the willingness of Canada to sell
this product to the United States, is a simpler example of a similar
opportunity, which has, in fact, been exploited through an ad hoc arrangement.
14. The Commission’s expanded production program and its program of
development of improved weapons place an increased demand upon the
supply of technical talent available to the Commission within the United
States. It is the Commission’s view that the United States should not be
prohibited from utilizing and drawing upon available
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and qualified talent in the United Kingdom
and Canada, if situations arise wherein the personnel of those two
countries could make a genuine contribution to the United States atomic
energy program.
15 . . .
16 . . .
17. The foregoing examples will serve to illustrate the Commission’s
expectation that there will arise in the future, as in the past, many
opportunities in many assorted fields related to atomic energy for the
United States to enhance its own security by assisting, cooperating
with, or obtaining assistance from the United Kingdom or Canada. It is
the Commission’s view that the development of a new relationship with
the United Kingdom and Canada should have as its basic aim the
establishment of an atmosphere and an administrative arrangement within
which every such opportunity may be seized promptly and exploited
vigorously. However, the Commission would be disappointed if the
resulting relationships should be so designed as merely to capture the
benefits of particular opportunities now clearly apparent, without
providing also for the recognition and prompt seizure of other such
opportunities, now unpredicted and perhaps unpredictable, which may
arise in the future. It is the Commission’s hope that a durable
satisfactory tripartite arrangement can be made. Such an arrangement
would at first relieve the existing uncertainty as to ore supplies,
enable the United States and the United Kingdom to make optimum use of
their existing production facilities, and allow accomplishment of
various other acts of cooperation and mutual assistance, already well
defined, which will patently enhance the collective security. It would,
however, also provide flexible means for determining, from time to time,
whether other such acts will improve the security of the United States,
either directly or by strengthening one of the other two countries, and
provide flexible means for accomplishing efficiently such acts as are
thus determined to be desirable. It would also minimize wasteful
duplication of effort.
18. The Commission has noted the position taken by the Department of
Defense on this subject as identified by six positive objectives
considered desirable from the military standpoint, namely;
-
a.
- To discover and exploit all of the best sources of uranium
ores in non-communist hands, and get the maximum of supplies for
the United States program.
-
b.
- To ensure that the United Kingdom and Canada convert their ore
supplies into plutonium as quickly and efficiently as
practicable,
-
c.
- To arm the United Kingdom speedily with efficient weapons in
numbers consistent with the value of their plutonium production
in terms of composite cores.
-
d.
- To ensure that in the event of war the United States-United
Kingdom combined capability for atomic warfare is maximized by
virtue of pre-war coordination.
-
e.
- To maximize United States, United Kingdom, and Canadian
capability of offering active and passive defense against attack
by atomic weapons.
-
f.
- To continue indefinitely the current arrangements with respect
to Canadian ore, pile fuel, and plutonium production.
19. The Commission has also noted that the Department of Defense
considers the six objectives should be achieved with two considerations
in mind, namely;
-
a.
- The requirement to provide maximum practicable security to
United States classified atomic energy information.
-
b.
- The desire that weapons production facilities, stockpiles for
atomic weapons, and delivery vehicles should be located as
safely as possible.
20. The Commission has set forth above in general terms certain of the
problems that it has faced in connection with the present relationship
with the United Kingdom and Canada on atomic energy matters. The
Commission has also indicated why it is desirable and necessary to
develop a broader type of relationship in order that the Commission can
gain more from the United Kingdom and Canada on this subject.
21. For purposes of illustration of the Commission’s position, we would
like to identify below examples of the type of cooperation we have in
mind. We consider it premature at this time to propose the particulars
of a working arrangement with the United Kingdom and Canada or the
details of a procedure for bringing such an arrangement into being.
However, the Commission will join with other representatives of the
executive branch of the government to assist in the further development
of this matter before going to the Joint Committee; however, in asking
for the necessary change in legislation, the Commission would not commit
itself to the scope or methods of interchange—decisions as to scope and
methods can only follow exploratory conferences with the other two
countries.
22. While the examples made below have particular reference ta the United
Kingdom and Canada, the Commission considers that the existence of other
problems in the field of atomic energy between the United States and
still other countries, notably Belgium and the Union of South Africa,
should be kept in mind. We believe, however, that these problems cannot
be completely solved until a set relationship with the United Kingdom
and Canada has been first established.
-
a.
-
Security and Strategic Factors: It is
considered that broader cooperation with the United Kingdom and
Canada places an obligation on all three countries to scrutinize
existing security procedures and policies in order to assure the
three countries that the maximum security is being achieved. The
strategic location of new facilities and stockpiles should be
developed consistent with joint estimates of the various
military factors involved.
-
b.
-
Raw Material Procurement and Research:
The joint procurement of raw materials should be continued on an
intensified basis as well as the necessary cooperation on the
associated problems of the geology of radioactive ores and the
beneficiation of the ores. In order to provide the increased
requirements of the United States and to take into account the
requirement of the two production piles in the United Kingdom,
it is necessary that every effort be exerted by the governments
of the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada to assure
sufficient raw material for the programs in the three
countries.
-
c.
-
The Efficient Utilization of Raw
Materials: The foreseeable supply of raw material being
somewhat predictable and limited, it is necessary that the three
countries utilize the raw material in every process in the most
economical and efficient way. Therefore, there should be broad
cooperation in the problems pertaining to the development of
uranium at both the research and production levels which will
have as the basic objective the optimum efficient utilization of
the material in all three programs.
-
d.
-
Research in Physics and Chemistry and Its
Application: There should be broad cooperation in basic
research in physics and chemistry and, particularly, the
application of this research to the various fields of atomic
energy activity when such application will assist the United
States, United Kingdom and Canada to utilize more efficiently
the limited supplies of raw materials, man-power and facilities.
These fields would include reactor development, production,
biology and medicine, raw materials and weapons.
-
e.
-
An Exchange of Plutonium for Weapons or
Weapons Components: There should be established an
equitable arrangement in order that the United States would
receive the maximum quantity of plutonium produced from the two
British piles and, in return, the United States should either
speedily arm the United Kingdom with the efficient . . . weapon
consistent with the value of their plutonium production or
provide an equitable transfer of U–235 or other weapon
components.
-
f.
-
Weapon Information: The United Kingdom
should be provided with sufficient information concerning atomic
weapons in order that the necessary plans can be made for the
utilization of the weapons, particularly in connection with the
carrier and crews.
-
g.
-
Intelligence: There should be complete
and comprehensive exchange of information among the countries in
order to maximize the United States-United Kingdom and Canadian
capability of interpreting the status of atomic activity in the
Soviet Union as well as providing a basis for developing active
and passive defense against attack and atomic weapons
-
h.
-
Exchange of Technical Personnel: It is
considered that an arrangement should be developed for the
utilization of available and qualified talent in the United
Kingdom and Canada if situations arise wherein the personnel of
those two countries could make a genuine contribution to the
United States atomic energy program. Conversely when United
States personnel could assist the Canadian and the United
Kingdom programs in order to assure the most efficient
utilization of facilities and the optimiin) production, such
arrangements should be made.
