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Relations. While the authors have had a few contacts with the Energy Research and Development Administration and with the Department of State, these contacts have been deliberately minimized in preference to use of the public record and information generally available to the public, particularly the texts of the agreements. Any consequent gaps in this analysis with respect to the changing role of agreements for cooperation, their uses, their limitations, and their relevance to the troublesome issue of proliferation of nuclear weapons among the nations of the world can be corrected by the agencies concerned in their appearances before the Committee.

III. BILATERAL AGREEMENTS: WHAT ARE THEY AND WHY?

The fundamental mechanism for international nuclear cooperation between the United States and other nations or international organizations is an Agreement for Cooperation. These agreements are popularly known as "bilateral agreements." A variation which involves commitments by the United States and the other party to the International Atomic Energy Agency is known as a trilateral or tripartite agreement. Agreements for cooperation are negotiated for the United States by the Department of State with the strong participation of the Energy Research and Development Administration. To take effect, they require a Presidential finding and approval, and must lie before Congress for a specified time during which Congress in essence can exercise a veto. The agreements provide the framework for technical cooperation and for export of U. S. nuclear materials, powerplants and related equipment to nations abroad, and for safeguarding of exported items against theft, diversion or illicit use.

Transfer of Information: a Prime Mover for World Use of Nuclear Power The worldwide spread of the science and technologies of atomic energy and nuclear power was extended greatly beginning in the 1950s by an outward surge in information from the United States. *

* The two terms, atomic energy and nuclear power, are frequently used. They are not synonyms. Atomic energy is the more inclusive term which encompasses uses of radiation and radioactive materials as well as production of useful energy from fission and fusion. Nuclear power is limited to the technologies for producing useful energy (process heat or electricity) from fission of uranium atoms.

The transfer of scientific and technical information has been a driving force for development of atomic energy ever since O. R. Frisch and L. Meitner early in 1939 speculated that absorption of a neutron by a uranium nucleus sometimes caused fission. The role of information exchange became immediately evident.

News of this speculation was brought to the United States in January 1939 by Niels Bohr who at once communicated this idea to his former student, J. A. Wheeler and others at Princeton. From them the news spread by word of mouth to neighboring physicists, including E. Fermi at Columbia University. By January 26, 1939, the fission process was discussed at a conference on theoretical physics in Washington, D. C. Before this meeting was over, experiments had confirmed that neutrons could initiate fission and other confirmations were reported in the February 15, 1939, issue of Physical Review. From then on there was a steady flow of papers on fission. The scientific community itself soon attempted to stop publication of further data by voluntary agreement because of military implications but was not able to do so for about a year.* The voluntary control of 1940 was soon supplanted by government controls and restrictions as the wartime atom bomb project began to move. Information on military

* Professor Smyth in his famous report noted that in the spring of 1939 a small group of foreign-born physicists in the United States attempted to stop publication of further data on fission by voluntary agreement. Leading American and British physicists agreed, but F. Joliot, France's foremost nuclear physicist, refused, apparently because of the publication of one letter in the Physical Review sent in before all Americans had been brought into agreement. Consequently, publication continued freely for about another year although a few papers were withheld voluntarily by their authors. Cf., H. D. Smythe. Atomic energy for military purposes. Princeton; Princeton University Press, 1945, p. 45.

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and civil uses of nuclear energy was held secret, and Congress in the Atomic Energy Act of 1946 continued this secrecy and the premise that certain information was born classified and subject to strict control. In the Atomic Energy Act of 1946, Congress in an extraordinary grant of peacetime authority gave the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission control over the dissemination of restricted data" in such a manner as to "assure the common defense and security."* "Restricted data" was defined to include information relating to civil use of nuclear power. ** In the Act, Congress limited international exchange of information on industrial nuclear power, but encouraged the dissemination of scientific and technical information relating to uses other than weapons and industrial power.

The policies of the United States for exchange of information and technology for atomic energy is characterized by two distinct phases. From 1946 to 1954 the national policy sought to confine and prevent the export of U. S. nuclear information and technology. From 1954 to the present national policy has emphasized the benefits of such transfers and has promoted them. The era of restricted transfer: 1946-1954

After the rejection in the United Nations of the U. S. proposals for international control and development of atomic energy (the Acheson - Lilien

* Section 10(a) of the Atomic Energy Act of 1946.

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** The 1946 Act defined "restricted data" to mean ...all data concerning the manufacture or utilization of atomic weapons, the production of fissionable material, or the use of fissionable material in the production of power, but shall not include any data which the Commission from time to time determines may be published without adversely affecting the common defense and security.

thal report and the Baruch Plan), the United States sought to bar the export of U. S. technology for nuclear weapons and power. Beginning with the Atomic Energy Act in 1946, there followed almost a decade of secrecy and severe limitations upon exports and international cooperation.

While the Atomic Energy Act of 1946 did contemplate sharing of information concerning the practical industrial applications of atomic energy with other countries, this was prohibited until "effective and enforceable safeguards against its use for destructive purposes [could] be devised." This statutory condition never was fulfilled and the restrictions of the Act ended the wartime nuclear collaboration of the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and Belgium. The only cooperation permissible in 1946 was for exploration for uranium ores and their procurement. Five years later Congress slightly relaxed the restrictions by authorizing the Atomic Energy Commission to exchange certain information with other countries about the "refining, purification and subsequent treatment of source materials, reactor development, production of fissionable material, and research and development. "* In this amendment Congress laid down four limitations for U. S. technical assistance in nuclear energy limitations that have become the foundation for negotiation and approval of agreements for cooperation. These limitations were:

(1) a prohibition against communication of weapons design and fa-
brication data;

Public Law 82-235, 65 Stat. 692, 1951.

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