1742 



purposeless variations in form increase administrative difficulties 

 and perhaps unnecessarily raise the costs. Decisions on choices be- 

 tween bilateral and multilateral forms should be based on hard evi- 

 dence and reasoning, rather than on a kind of seat-of-the-pants 

 approach or personal bias. 



While the discussions of issues and cases in the present study do not 

 examine systematically the full array of problems and opportunities 

 associated with the bilateral-multilateral dimension, enough informa- 

 tion is developed to show the importance and ramifications of the 

 subject. The discussions of this operational issue, chapter by chapter, 

 are presented herebelow under corresponding chapter headings. 



CASE one: the bartjch plan 



In this study of an early (1946-47) case, the nature of the problem 

 and the tenor of the times assured that the subject of international 

 control of atomic energy would be dealt Avith as a multilateral problem 

 calling for multilateral agreement. Failure of the effort was not neces- 

 sarily related to the multilateral approach. Basically the Baruch 

 Plan foundered on the problem of replacing national sovereignty wdth 

 international (i.e., multilateral) control. It is this same problem that 

 besets the nations of the world in attempting to resolve the questions 

 of seabed mineral development, control of direct TV broadcasts from 

 satellites, and Landsat mineral surveys. However, in the case of the 

 Baruch Plan, not only national sovereignty but national survival 

 was at stake. On so momentous a matter it is not evident that a bilat- 

 eral approach could have offered any more promising option than 

 did the multilateral approach that failed. 



case two: commercial nuclear power in EUROPE 



This case presented a large number of different examples of both 

 bilateral and multilateral agreements. Thus, when the Congress 

 directed that the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission make available to 

 cooperating nations the "benefits of peaceful applications of atomic 

 energy," the AEC proceeded to negotiate bilateral agreements with 

 individual nations or with regional defense organizations.^®^ The ad- 

 ministrative advantage of this arrangement was that such agreements 

 were simpler to negotiate and did not require Senate approval. (How- 

 ever, such agreements did require explicit approval of the President 

 and were required to "lie before the Joint Committee [on Atomic 

 Energy] for 30 days while Congress is in session.") 



Bilateral atomic agreements were considerably stepped up following 

 the diplomatic initiative of President Eisenhower, December 8, 1953, 

 in his Atoms for Peace message.^*^^ Two years later bilateral nuclear 

 agreements had been completed with 22 countries, and the pace 

 continued.^®^ These bilateral agreements [concluded Donnelly] 

 ", . . obtained from the United States unusual rights not available 



38' U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Foreign Affairs, Commercial Nvdear 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 Besearch Service, Librcry 

 of Congress, Washington, D.C. U.S. Govt. Print. Off., 1972: vol. I, p. 155. (The initial provision was con- 

 tained in the Atomic Energy Act of 1946, P.L. 585, 79th Cong., 60 Stat. 755-75.) 



3M See ibid., pp. 1.50-160, for an account of the speech and its aftermath. 



309 Ibid. Table I, p. 163, and Table II, p. 175. 



