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

Department of State Atomic Energy Files

The Secretary of War (Patterson) and the Secretary of the Navy (Forrestal) to the Secretary of State

top secret

Washington, [undated.]

Dear Mr. Secretary: In reply to your letter of 11 February 1947 requesting a considered military opinion as to the effect on the security of the U.S. of the location of a large-scale atomic energy plant in the U.K., the Joint Chiefs of Staff have furnished the following views with which we concur:¹

• “1. The Joint Chiefs of Staff answer the question on the assumption that, in any future war, Britain will be an ally of the United States.
• “2. Fundamentally, the Joint Chiefs of Staff consider the location of a large-scale atomic energy plant in Great Britain to be disadvantageous to the security interests of the United States because:

  a. It locates such a plant, and presumably large stocks of useable material, closer to a potential enemy than would be the case if it were located, for example, in Canada.

  b. Presumably, its construction would divert from U.S. manufacturing capacity an appreciable portion of available raw materials, all of which can and should at this time be used in producing in U.S. plants material suitable for atomic weapons.

• “3. The point of overriding importance, however, is that all available ore be turned into useable fissionable material available to the United States or to potential allies in case of an emergency. Consequently the disadvantages of having a plant constructed in Great Britain can be minimized by the earlist possible conversion into a form useable for atomic weapons of those raw materials which are now accumulating in England.”

Sincerely yours,

R. P. Patterson
Forrestal

1. The JCS views were forwarded to the Secretaries of War and Navy by a memorandum dated 1 March 1947.