1529 



political and technical judgments contributing to U.S. decisions to 

 accept or reject successive international arms control agreements. 

 Nevertheless, the question remains as to whether Congress is doing 

 all it could and should do to come to grips with this greatest of con- 

 temporary problems of the interface of science, technology, and 

 diplomacy. 



Some IlhiMrative Questions 



Cases One and Two of the Science, Technolog}^, and American Diplo- 

 macy study series both deal with the question of control of nuclear 

 energy. The foregoing anal^'sis of Case One poses important questions 

 for Congress. However, because The Baruch Plan deals with an early 

 stage in American diplomatic experience with nuclear technology, and 

 because the basic issues and their implications were more fully ex- 

 plored in the decade between the Baruch Plan negotiations of 1946 and 

 President Eisenhower's "Atoms for Peace" initiative and related legis- 

 lation of the mid-1950s, the questions suggested by this study are 

 combined with those following the analysis of Case Two, (See Vol. I, 

 pp. 536-539.) 



CASE TWO— COMMERCIAL NUCLEAR POWER IN EUROPE : THE INTER- 

 ACTION OF DIPLOMACY WITH A NEW TECHNOLOGY " 



Statement of the Case 



A second major U.S. diplomatic initiative in the post-World War II 

 effort involving foreign policy and atomic energy was President 

 Eisenhower's "Atoms for Peace" proposal, conveyed in a speech to the 

 United Nations General Assembly on December 8, 1953.'^ This time 

 the emphasis was on nonmilitar}^ applications, but the underlying goal 

 remained the same: to avert atomic military buildup by diverting 

 nuclear materials to peaceful uses, and to provide a forum for some 

 cooperation between the United States and Soviet spheres of influence. 



The new initiative was successful in furthering the development of 

 peaceful uses of atomic energy, thereby serving a secondary U.S. 

 policy objective. Whether, on balance, it contributed to the primary 

 aim is less evident, for the nuclear arms race continued at a frightening 

 pace. At best, it ma}' be said to have helped establish patterns of 

 international cooperation and formal agreement on controls and safe- 

 guards which might some day carry over into the area of military 

 applications. At worst, it may be judged to have encouraged nuclear 

 technology transfer, without first achieving reliable international 

 safeguards, to the point at which responsible nations adhering to the 

 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty may one day — perhaps soon — be 

 subject to pressures to withdraw and make their own bombs as 

 defense against nonadhering nations. Proliferation of nuclear power 

 technology and industry also increases the possibility that outlaw 

 groups will come to possess nuclear arsenals. 



Importance of the Case 



The Baruch Plan of 1946 had failed to achieve agreement to 

 arrest the development of a nuclear arms race before it could get 

 started. By the time of the Eisenhower "Atoms for Peace" message the 



" U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Foreign Affairs, Commercial Nuclear Power in Europe: The Inter- 

 action of American Diplomacy With a New Technology, a study in the series on Science, Technology, and 

 American Diplomacy prepared for the Subcommittee on National Security Policy and Scientific Develop- 

 ments by Warren H. Donnelly, Science Policy Research Division, Congressional Research Service, 

 Washington, U.S. Govt. Print. Off., 1972. See Vol. I, pp. 123-292. 



"8 Ibid., pp. 150-151. 



