3. Memorandum of Conversation0
SUBJECT
- General Buchalet’s Visit to the United States
PARTICIPANTS
- General Buchalet, French Atomic Commissariat
- Mr. H.G. Torbert, Director of WE
- Mr. J.J. Jova, WE
At a reception at the French Embassy General Buchalet expressed great pleasure at his trip to the United States. He had just visited the Nevada Testing Site and felt that what he had learned would save France many millions of dollars.1 On many details it would be possible for France to follow procedures established by the United States and thus to avoid expensive trial and error methods.
General Buchalet spoke as if it were a foregone conclusion that a French atomic bomb would be set-off soon. He did not venture an opinion as to the date, saying that much depended on the accumulation of French stocks of plutonium and on the rate from which plutonium was withdrawn from such stocks for civilian experiments. Precedence was being given to the latter type of experiments as they did not destroy the plutonium and it could be utilized again, while a bomb explosion would of course transform the plutonium. General Buchalet was categoric that the first French test explosion would take place in the Sahara and not in Oceania.
- Source: Department of State, Central Files, 033.5111/3–2158. Secret. Drafted by Joseph J. Jova, Officer in Charge of French-Iberian Affairs in the Office of Western European Affairs, and initialed by Torbert.↩
- Buchalet headed a French Nuclear Group composed of military officers, medical personnel, physicists, and other scientists who made a 2-week visit to the United States, beginning February 17, to learn about the effects of an atomic test and to study the equipment used by the United States to analyze such a test.↩