Foreign Relations of the United States, 1955–1957, Western European Security and Integration, Volume IV

161. Memorandum From the Deputy Under Secretary of State (Murphy) to the Director of the International Cooperation Administration (Hollister)¹

Washington, February 16, 1956.

SUBJECT

• OEEC Ministerial Meeting February 28–29

The Department welcomes the opportunity to provide you with its views on the two questions raised in your memorandum of January 31, to the Secretary.²

1. There should not necessarily be conflict between the activities of the OEEC and those of a genuinely supranational “EURATOM”. We are not now able to judge whether France, Germany, Italy and the Benelux countries are prepared to create institutions in the field of atomic energy whose authority and responsibility would be as reliable as that of a single state. If they do, the Department of State and the Atomic Energy Commission would be prepared to go to the Congress to ask for enabling legislation which would permit treating EURATOM as well or better than we would treat individual countries.

The OEEC is a highly successful and productive agency for international economic cooperation among European countries, with the United States and Canada active associates. (In the OEEC a supranational EURATOM could participate as one unit on atomic energy matters.) Under present statute, (without an additional treaty) it is not possible for the United States to enter into bilateral atomic energy arrangements involving classified information with groupings of countries. The OEEC is a grouping of countries which by its nature would not have the capability of acting as a single state. Hence, we should plan to cooperate with it actively, but only in the unclassified field of atomic energy knowledge and activity. This is a very large field. The Department believes that in it the United States should make as large and as valuable a contribution as it can to the cooperative processes and programs of OEEC countries. The United States Government will be entering into bilateral arrangements, of various sorts, with many individual European countries, and the Department believes that a supranational EURATOM acting as one unit in OEEC work would increase, rather than diminish the fruitful exchanges on atomic energy matters between all cooperating OEEC participants.

The Department would not adopt the same attitude towards a EURATOM which merely called for the kind of cooperative relationships now existing among OEEC countries.

2. We should not stand in the way of consideration by European countries of the question of how they can play an active role in contributing to economic growth in the under-developed areas of the world. However, taking into account our previous consultations with the United Kingdom on this subject, our observation of Asian sentiment as revealed in the Simla meeting of the Colombo Plan countries, our doubts as to the propriety of a regional organization in one area discussing problems of another area not there represented, and the fact that we are not full members in the OEEC and that some influential European countries may well make points which we would otherwise wish to advance, we believe that on the subject of an OEEC role in a development program for the under-developed parts of the world we should maintain a position of reserve.

We do not see great promise for fruitful consideration of economic matters within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization as such. We regard the economic cooperation now being pursued among Atlantic Community countries, in the OEEC and elsewhere, as carrying out the intent of Article II and as enhancing effective accomplishment of the objectives of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. In this way we can build up the non-military aspects of NATO without detracting from its military importance.

I am attaching for your information a memorandum of conversation between the Secretary and the Atomic Energy Commission dealing with the problem of atomic energy and European integration.³

Robert Murphy

1. Source: Department of State, Central Files, 840.00/1–3156. Confidential. Drafted by Barnett; cleared with Herbert V. Prochnow, Deputy Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs, Corbett, Merchant, Timmons, Smith, Murphy, and Robert Hill, Special Assistant to the Under Secretary of State for Mutual Security Affairs.
2. In this memorandum, John B. Hollister requested guidance on two matters in connection with the upcoming Ministerial meeting of the Organization for European Economic Cooperation (OEEC): atomic energy and economic aid to undeveloped countries. (Ibid.)
3. Document 149.