120. Editorial Note
Between February 27 and April 18, representatives of 12 nations held 18 working-level meetings in Washington to develop the text of a Statute for the proposed International Atomic Energy Agency. The 12-nation group, composed of the United States, Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, Portugal, Union of South Africa, the United Kingdom, Brazil, Czechoslovakia, India, and the Soviet Union, considered the previous draft statute distributed on August 22, 1955, in light of subsequent comments received from other nations during the meetings of the Tenth General Assembly of the United Nations and afterwards. The General Assembly discussions in October and November 1955 revealed opposition to the draft statute as prepared by an eight-nation negotiating group. Critics claimed that it did not give prospective [Page 349] members sufficient input into the drafting of the Statute and the management of the International Atomic Energy Agency after it was created. In response, the negotiating group said it would invite all prospective members of the Agency to participate in an international conference to draft the final text of the Statute. The United States also initiated a démarche to invite Brazil, Czechoslovakia, India, and the Soviet Union to join the negotiating group at the working-level meetings in late February 1956.
Section II of the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 912 (X), December 3, 1955, welcomed the progress made toward drafting the International Atomic Energy Agency Statute as well as the expansion of the negotiating group and recommended that the negotiating group consider the comments of other governments and “take all possible measures to establish the Agency without delay.” Meetings of the expanded negotiating group were held on November 14, 1955, and January 23, 1956, to agree on provisional rules of procedure, a general approach to the issues, and a date for the opening of the working-level meeting.
Meanwhile, on November 30, 1955, Morehead Patterson resigned as Representative for International Atomic Energy Agency Negotiations. On January 26, 1956, Ambassador James Wadsworth, Deputy Representative at the United Nations, was appointed to serve also as Representative for International Atomic Energy Agency Negotiations. United States representatives met with representatives of the United Kingdom and Canadian Embassies during the week of February 10 to prepare for the working-level conference.
The working group unanimously adopted the text of a revised Statute of the International Atomic Energy Agency for presentation at an international conference scheduled to convene at United Nations headquarters in New York in September 1956. Several of the 12 delegations reserved their positions on certain details, but all approved the Statute as a whole.
Morehead Patterson’s progress report on the Agency submitted to President Eisenhower along with his letter of resignation on November 30, 1955, is printed in Department of State Bulletin, January 2, 1956, pages 4–7. Wadsworth’s appointment as Representative for International Atomic Energy Agency Negotiations is noted ibid., February 6, 1956, page 210. Press releases announcing the opening and conclusion of the working-level talks are ibid., March 12, page 438, and April 30, 1956, pages 729–730. The text of the revised Statute is ibid., May 21, 1956, pages 852–859. Summaries of these meetings, various documents relating to the meetings, and a verbatim record of these meetings on dictaphone belts are in Department of State, Atomic Energy Files: Lot 57 D 688, folders entitled Working Level Meetings, [Page 350] 1956, and IAEA Negotiations, Washington, 1956; and ibid., Central Files, 398.1901–IAEA. For an extract of Wadsworth’s report on the meetings transmitted to Secretary Dulles, see Document 138.
For information on the role of the United Nations, including the text of Resolution 912 (X), see Yearbook of the United Nations, 1955, pages 14–18. Regarding the negotiations at the international conference beginning in September 1956, leading to the creation of the International Atomic Energy Agency, see Document 156.