600.0012/1–2754
Memorandum by the Secretary of Defense (Wilson) to the Secretary of State and the Chairman of the United States Atomic Energy Commission (Strauss)
top secret
Washington, January 27, 1954.
- Subject:
- A Suggested Basis for a Plan to Carry out the President’s Proposal, “Atomic Power for Peace”
- 1.
- The Joint Chiefs of Staff have reviewed the Atomic Energy Commission
draft, subject as above, dated 13 January, 1954,1 on the basis of the following broad criteria,
which are considered to be of primary importance from the military
viewpoint:
- “a. The provisions of the plan should not serve to increase directly the capabilities of any nation in the military application of atomic energy by virtue of its membership in or association with the proposed International Atomic Energy Agency;
- “b. Implementation of the plan should not result in any appreciable decrease in the atomic capability of the United States in the military field relative to that of the USSR;
- “c. In the proposed basis for establishment of an International Atomic Energy Agency or in the treaty establishing such an agency, there should be no inference that the United States is prepared to accept international regulation of atomic armaments alone, thereby departing from its stated policy that International control of atomic energy is inseparably related to international regulation of armed forces and all other forms of armament’ (see NSC 112);2 and
- “d. Membership in the International Atomic Energy Agency should not preclude bilateral or multilateral arrangements in the atomic field outside the framework of the agency.”
- 2.
- With the exception of the statement in paragraph 2, page 3, of the Atomic Energy Commission draft to the effect that the activities of the Agency “would begin to diminish the potential destructive power of the world’s atomic stockpiles”, which appears to be at variance with the actual facts as I understand them, the Atomic Energy Commission draft appears adequately to meet the foregoing criteria. I therefore concur with the Joint Chiefs of Staff opinion that this draft provides an acceptable initial basis for a plan to carry out the President’s proposal, “Atomic Energy for Peace” and for the preliminary discussions which it is understood will take place during the Berlin Conference.
C. E.
Wilson
- Not found in Department of State files. Presumably it was an antecedent draft of the “Outline of International Atomic Energy Commission”, Mar. 17, printed on p. 1372.↩
- For text of NSC 112, July 6, 1951, see Foreign Relations, 1951, vol. i, p. 447.↩