Foreign Relations of the United States, 1947, General; The United Nations, Volume I

501.BC Atomic/3–1347

Memorandum by the Deputy United States Representative on the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission (Osborn) to the United States Representative at the United Nations (Austin)¹

confidential

[New York,] March 13, 1947.

Subject: Draft Proposal of the U.S. Delegation to the U.N. Atomic Energy Commission Covering Our Plan of Action for the next six months.²

I. Basic Purpose to be Achieved: It is our purpose, to which we should adhere consistently throughout the next six months, to get the Atomic Energy Commission to complete by September an actual draft (i.e. a specific proposal) of at least those portions of the Charter of the international control agency and of the treaty incorporating the charter which would define those things which are essential (a) to the security of all participating nations; and (b) to a cooperative international development of peaceful uses of atomic energy. Without a specific proposal of this sort, the debates will be carried on in a vacuum.

II. As means to effect this central purpose, we propose the following:

A. The greatest possible cooperation with delegations of all other nations on the Atomic Energy Commission. While we recognize that the position of the United States with respect to atomic energy gives us special responsibilities which we cannot avoid, we should constantly have in mind the contributions which may be made by other nations provided they have a sense of complete participation.

Every effort should be made to draw from the Soviet Delegation their constructive proposals, but the work of the Commission cannot wait on a process which in the past has resulted in infinite delays. It is our feeling that we may have to be satisfied with specific proposals in which the majority concur, but with respect to which the Soviet Delegation’s members give no indication of their position, either in detail or as a whole.

B. We will attempt to concentrate the first energies of the Commission on drafting only those portions of a charter and treaty essential to the development of an effective cooperative control agency, and to the prevention of national rivalries in armament, and drafting them first from the point of view of security, returning, after the first drafting, to a redrafting from the point of view of national interest and other considerations; if we should attempt at the start to cover all of the charter and treaty, we might by the dispersion of our energies lose our chance to complete a draft of any part by the first of September. A more detailed plan as to where we should start the drafting should be worked out at once by our staff in cooperation with the other delegations.

C. Exploration of the possibilities of strengthening the United Nations Secretariat of the Atomic Energy Commission in the hope that they may more effectively discharge their responsibility for the drafting of specific proposals based on the Commission’s instructions.

III. There is a question in our minds as to whether it is necessary at this time to make any further reply to the Soviet proposal for a convention which would immediately outlaw atomic weapons. Most of us have rather the feeling that it is not necessary unless Gromyko, as the present Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, should force our hand on it. If he should attempt this, should we take the position that the matter has already been discussed and rejected in the Atomic Energy Commission (Para. 6 of General Findings, Part II of the First Report of the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission to the Security Council)?

IV. If you approve of this general outline of our plans, we should propose to discuss it at once on a personal and informal basis with the other delegations and report to you thereafter in more detail.

1. Austin was also United States Representative on the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission.

   In a memorandum to the Staff of the United States Delegation to the UN AEC, March 13, Osborn indicated that Austin had approved the present memorandum in all its parts, and that Rusk and Herschel Johnson had also gone over it and approved it (501.BC Atomic/3–1347).

2. At its 117th Meeting, March 10, the Security Council had unanimously adopted the United States resolution regarding the First Report of the Atomic Energy Commission, as amended by proposals by Brazil, France, and the United States itself. The original United States draft resolution is printed on p. 422; for the text of the resolution actually adopted, see SC, 2nd yr., Plenary, No. 24, pp. 487–488. The resolution, among other things, instructed the Atomic Energy Commission to continue its study of all phases of international control of atomic energy and to submit a second report to the Security Council prior to the convening of the next session of the General Assembly (September).

   The UN AEC held four plenary meetings and numerous subcommittee meetings between March 19 and September 11, 1947; with respect to this work, see United Nations, Official Records of the Atomic Energy Commission, Second Year, Plenary Meetings (hereafter cited as AEC, 2nd yr., Plenary); United Nations, Official Records of the Atomic Energy Commission, Second Year, Special Supplement, The Second Report of the Atomic Energy Commission to the Security Council, September 11, 1947 (hereafter cited as AEC, 2nd yr., Special Suppl.); and Department of State Publication 3161, The International Control of Atomic Energy: Policy at the Crossroads (Washington, Government Printing Office, 1948).