493.918/8–1353: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Embassy in India1
170. Eyes only for Amb. Allen. After studying draft in your 276 I [Page 1710] am even more impressed with importance of assurances you undertake to cover in paragraph 4. I realize that you have gone to great lengths to make clear to the Government of India the extremely difficult situation in which we have been placed by shipments of thorium nitrate, which I now understand to be somewhat in excess of two tons. With all possible good will on our part and with the greatest possible concern for avoiding any implication of interference with the sovereign right of India to control her trade and the management of her internal and external affairs, the fact remains that we are confronted with a drastic provision of our own law and are seeking a solution which will meet both considerations. I doubt if the Government of India is even now fully aware of the difficulties this imposes upon us. For example, the regulations of the Atomic Energy Commission provide that anyone within the U.S. possessing more than one pound of thorium nitrate must report it to the Commission. No one in U.S. may transfer more than one pound of this mineral or export any quantity however small from the U.S. without a license from the Commission. For these reasons we place great stress on receipt from Government of India of assurances outlined draft (Embtel 276) and I believe that your phrasing of paragraph 3 is the absolute minimum which would enable me to find a way out of the present situation. Certainly any future shipments would leave us with no alternative whatever. My estimate is that if you are able informally to negotiate the assurances you have requested from the Indian Government, Stassen and I will be able to deal with the instant case. You can proceed with these negotiations on the basis that prior to formal receipt of the assurances requested the determination will be made as to whether the shipments were “knowingly permitted” and the Government of India informed of that determination. At the same time we will reopen negotiations for the purchase of India’s entire production of thorium nitrate.
I realize you were informed of the above during my absence in Korea, but the situation has developed more fully while I was away and since my return I have reviewed the correspondence and realize even more fully the gravity of the problem.2
- This telegram was drafted by Under Secretary of State Smith and was signed by Jeffrey C. Kitchen, Deputy Director of the Executive Secretariat.↩
- Ambassador Allen reported in New Delhi telegram 331, Aug. 15, not printed, that he had read pertinent portions of Department telegram 170 to Pillai, who was impressed by the rigidity of U.S. regulations regarding thorium nitrate, and again expressed his anger that Indian officials had pressed Prime Minister Nehru into permitting this shipment (493.918/8–1553).↩