501.BC Atomic/1–847: Telegram
The Acting United States Representative at the United Nations ( Johnson ) to the Secretary of State
priority
17. It is believed that the Department will wish to give urgent consideration to problem of work to be done by AEC in next few weeks. In this connection a member of USDel to AEC has suggested two lines of development which might be pursued simultaneously: (a) Legal Committee might be asked to begin work again to examine certain specific problems such as limitations of authority of Control Commission and its agents, crimes and punishments for individuals violating AE convention or Control Commission’s orders, relations of Control Commission to non-participating states; (b) Committee Two1 might begin work on organizational and operational problems of Control Commission.
In conversation yesterday with member of USDel, Herring,2 Secretary of AEC, specifically asked for US views on the nature of the work which Commission might do in forthcoming weeks, and when it might begin active work again. He stated he had recently held conversation with AEC Chairman Lange3 (Poland) who appeared agreeable to renewing Commission activities shortly after January 15. When asked what form he thought such activities should take, Herring, while not giving precise suggestions, stated he thought there is much work which Committee Two might undertake without awaiting SC action on recent AEC report. In this connection Department will note that in letter of December 31 transmitting AEC report to SC (document S/2394) Sandoval-Vallarta5 stated that “continuing its further work along the lines indicated in the report, the Commission will proceed to the further study of the topics noted in the last paragraph of part one of the report and the other matters contained in its terms of [Page 347] reference with a view to making the specific proposals set forth in the Resolution of the GA of 24 January 1946 and reaffirmed in Resolution of the GA of 14 December 1946”. The paragraph referred to (AEC/18/Rev. 1 Page 13) cites a number of important questions, considered so far only in broad outline, which need further study. They include “detailed powers, characteristics, and functions” of International Control Agency; relations between the agency, organs of the UN, and participating states; powers of agency re research, development and planning; provisions for transition to full operation of international control; and other matters to be included in treaty or convention.
It would be helpful to have Department’s views, even though preliminary and tentative, as basis for informal reply to Herring and to representatives of other delegations who may make similar inquiries.
- Committee 2 was established on July 12, 1946, to deal with the basic issue of international control.↩
- Edward Pendleton Herring.↩
- Oscar Lange, Polish Representative to the United Nations and on the Atomic Energy Commission; Polish Ambassador in the United States.↩
- United Nations, Official Records of the Security Council, Second Year, Supplement No. 5, pp. 59–60 (hereafter cited as SC, 2nd yr., Suppl. No. 5).↩
- Dr. Manuel Sandoval Vallarta, Alternate Mexican Representative on the Atomic Energy Commission and Chairman of its Working Committee in 1946.↩