NEGOTIATION OF THE STATUTE

The statute of the International Atomic Energy Agency is designed to fill this need. Its origin is the proposal of the President. In working out the statute, some 80 nations took part. They represent every stage of economic development, every shade of political attitude, and every variety of national culture. Despite the need to reconcile these varied interests, the statute has kept intact every element of the President's proposal without sacrifice of substance or principle.

The fact that so many countries should have unanimously approved the text of the statute at the conference in New York last fall is a tribute to the soundness of the concept. At first, the Soviet Union was negative to these proposals. But, in the face of the world's manifest desire, the Soviet Union has now shown readiness to participate in the Agency. It even tries to compete with us for leadership in this effort. And I might interject that the Soviet Union hastened to be the first nation to ratify the statute, though I am glad to say Guatemala was the first nation to deposit an instrument of ratification.

In conceiving and negotiating this treaty, the United States is faithful to its great tradition of resourcefully identifying its own self-interest with the interest and welfare of all mankind.

ADVANTAGES OFFERED TO UNITED STATES

I turn now to the more concrete aspects of the matter. What advantage does this Agency offer to the United States and to other nations?

First, the Agency will accelerate the peaceful development of the atom. The history of atomic energy makes clear that many men from many nations have contributed to the stage we have now reached. A forum such as the Agency for the exchange of discovery and invention among all nations should result in a dramatic speeding up in this peaceful atomic development. Second, the Agency will provide an effective system of safeguards to insure the development of atomic energy with security.

We must realize that atomic-energy materials and know-how will spread, Agency or no Agency. A spread of nuclear technology and facilities is to our interest. But a rapid and unsupervised development of nuclear power around the world raises the specter of nuclear weapons ultimately becoming quite generally the byproducts of nuclear powerplants. An effective safeguard system must be established if this is to be prevented. These powerplants are going to be built. It is just a question of whether their spread around the world will or will not be surpervised in the common interest.

No one nation can, alone, indefinitely police the spread of nuclear powerplants. In our bilateral agreements we now provide for safeguards, including inspection by our own nationals, to assure against improper use of nuclear material. But this is a short-term solution. Sovereign nations would accept an international system of broad applicability. But they will not long be content to have their electricpower systems under continuous supervision by technicians merely serving another nation. So, if we want long-term and safe foreign

markets for our nuclear materials and technology, we need an international system of safeguards to assure that our exports do not breed military dangers.

The safeguard system contained in this treaty is the same as the American system of safeguards the system now contained in our bilateral agreements. No compromise of any substance was made in regard to safeguards during the treaty negotiations. In fact, the system contained in the final treaty is more comprehensive than that contained in early drafts of the treaty. This treaty will give the American system of safeguards a world standing. With some reason, we can hope that the American system will become universally accepted. In any event, it will be madatory for all countries in projects receiving Agency support.

Thirdly, there is the problem of health and safety. We know that atomic energy involves risks and dangers if improperly handled. An international code to protect the health and safety of those increasing numbers of people who work with atomic energy or live in the environs of nuclear establishments can best be established and supervised by this Agency.

Fourth, the Agency will afford a way of pooling inadequate manpower resources which otherwise could be a limiting factor in the peaceful uses of the atom.

Technical personnel, I am told, is in short supply. A purely bilateral approach would be a severe drain on United States skilled manpower. The Agency can be an instrument both for using this present supply in the most effective way and of increasing the supply by coordinating training of new technicians and scientists.

Fifth, the Agency can help in moving toward control of nuclear weapons. We have tried for many years to reach agreement on this difficult subject. The sticking point has always been the issue of controls. In the Agency, for the first time in history, the overwhelming majority of the nations have agreed on a far-reaching system of controls and safeguards. We hope that it will demonstrate the feasibility of controls in a way that will have a constructive impact on negotiations for the regulation and reduction of armaments.

Sixth, the openness which this system will promote can be in preventing the spread of nuclear weapons, which, in turn, could seriously impede arms control. It is quite conceivable that nations might themselves develop atomic weapons merely because of suspicion, unjustified in fact, that neighbors were doing so. Under this treaty, development of the peaceful atom would take place in the open, subject to international scrutiny. Thus, nations will feel less impelled to develop nuclear weapons out of fear of the unknown.

Finally, international cooperation in a new field comparable in importance to the industrial revolution can have an effect which will spread far beyond itself. We are all aware of the difficulties and obstacles to reaching agreement with the Soviet Union on any matter. But this Agency provides a beginning of cooperation which could have a favorable impact on the climate of international relations. The splitting of the atom might conceivably lead to a unifying of the now divided world.

QUESTION OF UNITED STATES OBLIGATIONS

The obligations which the United States would undertake as a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency, under its statute, are neither numerous nor heavy.

1. The statute does not contemplate that the Agency shall become a giveaway organization. The countries who receive materials and other atomic needs from it are required to pay a price that will permit the Agency to reimburse the supplier. As for suppliers, the amount of anything they make available materials, services, or equipment— is entirely up to them. The Agency has no power to call upon any member to become a supplier, but may only induce it to supply assistance by offering satisfactory terms.

2. The United States would be obligated to pay its share of the administrative expenses of the Agency. Other expenses are to be met out of other revenues of the Agency.

To give you an idea of what this might mean for the United States, the administrative expenses of the Agency for its first year of operation would not be expected to exceed $6 million. The maximum share of this that could be assessed to the United States would be one-third or $2 million.

3. Just as the Agency is barred from being a giveaway organization for handing out the members funds and resources, it cannot be a giveaway organization for atomic secrets. The Agency will not be a distributor of classified information, but only of information on peaceful uses of atomic energy which is in the open literature or is otherwise free of any restrictions on access imposed for reasons of security.

4. The fuel that the Agency will distribute will not be of a kind usable for nuclear weapons. I understand that extensive processing and refabrication would be needed to convert this fuel into weapons grade material or to extract its byproduct weapons grade material.

No prospective recipient of fuel from the Agency now possesses the necessary extensive facilities to affect this conversion or byproduct extraction. And if it were to acquire them, that could not as a practical matter be concealed from the Agency's notice.

I have already sought to indicate the great potential of this Agency-for economic development of large areas of the world; for cooperation with other nations, including the Soviet Union, in ways which will reduce international tension and promote the practice of peaceful and constructive collaboration; for encouraging peaceful use of the atom and averting the spread of nuclear military potential to additional countries; and for giving the nations experience with a system of international safeguards which could build confidence and further the prospects of safeguarded disarmament.

1954 CONGRESSIONAL ACTION

We have proceeded to take the initiative on the creation of the Agency with the blessings of the Congress. In 1954, although the President had not yet requested it, the Congress included among its extensive revisions of the Atomic Energy Act a provision specifically permitting the United States to enter into an agreement for coopera

tion with an international agency once it came into existence with appropriate congressional approval.

Now 80 nations have in effect accepted our concept. This is a unique development in diplomatic history. Ratification of this statute will afford the United States the opportunity to continue to exercise leadership to help the world, in the President's words, "out of fear and into peace."

Mr. Chairman, that concludes my prepared statement. I would like to say that Ambassador Wadsworth is here, who with great ability conducted the negotiations which resulted in the final signature of an agreed treaty between 80 nations. There were extensive negotiations which involved many weeks of time, and he is the best witness to be able to testify before you and answer your questions with respect to the technical aspects of the treaty, the meaning of its language and the legislative history which forms the background of the treaty.

As regards the atomic aspects of the matter, Chairman Strauss is here, but he has been called I understand as a witness before you on Tuesday and I think would prefer to make his principal presentation at that time.

I would like to be excused from answering questions of a technical nature involving atomic matters because that is no field into which a layman should barge and I defer to an expert on these matters as I am sure the committee will wish to do.

As far as relates to the general foreign policy aspects of this matter, I shall be glad to submit to your questioning, asking as I say leave, after I finish, to put Ambassador Wadsworth on the witness stand to answer your more technical questions about the treaty, and then leaving, if it is agreeable to you, until Tuesday the presentation by Chairman Strauss.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

QUESTIONING PROCEDURE

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Secretary, we will be very glad to ask questions under those conditions, understanding that you may prefer to defer them to someone else in certain cases.

Inasmuch as the committee sitting here today to consider this statute consists not only of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations but the Senate members of the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, it will be desirable for me to call on members in the order of their seniority in the Senate, not on the committees.

There are so many members present that I believe it would be helpful if each member would limit his questioning to not exceed 6 minutes for the first round of questions and I will ask the staff to inform me when each Senator's time has expired.

May I take the lead in asking some questions myself.

PROPOSED LOCATION OF AGENCY'S HEADQUARTERS

Where is it anticipated that this new Agency will establish its headquarters?

Secretary DULLES. In Vienna.

The CHAIRMAN. Why was that particular site selected?

Secretary DULLES. Because it was believed that Austria was on the one hand a neutral country which was an appropriate site for an in

ternational agency just as Switzerland, another neutral country, has become the seat of so many international agencies, and also because it has the buildings, facilities, and a good deal of literature and other qualifications.

There was considerable discussion, as I recall, at the conference as between Vienna and Geneva and Ambassador Wadsworth can give you more detail as to the discussion and background that actually took place in New York, but we believed that Vienna was an entirely suitable and appropriate place for the seat of the organization.

WOULD AGENCY BE A MIDDLEMAN BETWEEN GOVERNMENTS?

The CHAIRMAN. Isn't the proposed agency in effect a middleman between governments?

As a practical matter, if an underdeveloped country wants to purchase a reactor, isn't it likely to go to the British or the French or ourselves? Why should they deal with an international agency?

Secretary DULLES. We hope, Mr. Chairman, that the countries which are now in the position to supply fissionable material of which the United States ranks No. 1, the Soviet Union No. 2, and the United Kingdom No. 3, we think that they will all prefer to use this agency because it will provide a system of international safeguards which is in the interests of everyone.

Now it is quite likely that if there is no such organization with a standard system of controls, then you may get into a situation where nations will shop around and buy their material from the nation which imposes the least controls, and you would have a competition as between the three countries I mentioned, perhaps soon other ones, as to which one would impose the least controls, and in the end the whole control system would break down. We believe that because it is so much in the general interest that there should be a control system that if an international standard is available, formulated, ready to operate, that all of the supplying nations will prefer to act through it. That is surmise. We can't guarantee that, but the interest which the supplying nations have taken in this adherence to it and what they have said in the course of negotiations gives us good reason to hope that there will be acceptance of the single standard which would be applied by the Agency, and that none of them would make an effort to break that standard down by itself offering material on less stringent control terms.

The CHAIRMAN. Then, as I understand it, you think it will adjust itself equitably?

Secretary DULLES. Yes, sir. I think it is probable, as I say, that the supplying nations will prefer to have a common international standard of control applied rather than each try to devise its own in a competitive way, which would probably lead to the breakdown of all systems of control, and that no one believes is in its interest.

IRON CURTAIN COUNTRIES' ACQUISITION OF FISSIONABLE

MATERIALS

The CHAIRMAN. One more question: To what extent will it be possible for Iron Curtain countries to take fissionable materials in the amounts made available to the Agency?