68 



3. For the foreseeable future there can be no adequate 

 military defense against atomic weapons. 



4. All the initial processes in the production of fissionable 

 materials and certain subsequent processes are identical 

 whether their intended use or purpose is peaceful or military. 



5. The nuclear chain reaction required for the release of 

 atomic energy is now based upon uranium or thorium as the 

 only suitable raw materials occurring in nature. Ores contain- 

 ing these materials are only relatively rare. Although rich de- 

 posits are not numerous, the lower concentrations of the ores 

 have a wide geographical distribution. 19 



Preparations for negotiations in the UNAEC : In January 1946, 

 1 month after the conclusion of the Moscow Declaration, James F. 

 Byrnes, Secretary of State, announced that he had appointed a com- 

 mittee "to study the subject of controls and safeguards necessary to 

 protect this 00^-61-11™^!!^' during the international negotiations on 

 atomic energy. Assistant Secretary Acheson had been named chair- 

 man; the other members were Bush, Oonant, General Leslie Groves — 

 head of the Manhattan project which had developed the atomic bomb 

 during the war — and John McCloy, former Assistant Secretary of 

 War. Although the members of the committee had some knowledge of 

 atomic energy matters from the standpoint of both its technological 

 and political aspects, Acheson suggested appointing a Board of Con- 

 sultants to advise the committee on the technological aspects of inter- 

 national control. David Lilienthal, Chairman of the Tennessee Valley 

 Authority, was given the task of leading the Board. Its other members 

 were Chester Barnard, president of New Jersey Bell Telephone, who 

 had been active in the U.N. Relief and Rehabilitation Administration ; 

 Harry A. Winne, an engineer and a vice president of General Electric 

 Company, who had participated in the Manhattan Project ; and Dr. J. 

 Robert Oppenheimer, the physicist who had directed the weaponry 

 installation of the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos, New Mexico. 

 The composition of the two groups was intended to provide the talents 

 necessary to consider both the political and technological aspects of 

 the problem of providing a basis for a workable system of international 

 control. 



In the course of the next two months, the Board drafted a basic plan 

 for international control. Following a series of meetings with Ache- 

 son's committee, which led to certain modifications and additions, it 

 produced a document entitled "A Report on the International Control 

 of Atomic Energy." Known as the "Acheson-Lilienthal report," the 

 study set down the basic technological factors involved in the develop- 

 ment of atomic energy, particularly those which would affect the na- 

 ture of the international control system. Once these considerations had 

 been provided, the Hoard outlined the basic features of a control plan, 

 governed primarily by the technological data. ( )n the whole, the Board 

 regarded its work "not as a -final plan, but as a place to begin, a foun- 

 dation on which to build." 20 The report was released in late March 

 1!» H'» as a basis for public discussion. 



'•Bernhard G. Ftwhhtiofer. I'ostwar Xcaotintionfi for Arms Control (Washington, D.C. : 

 Brookings, 19fil), p. :{.'{. 



* State Department "Aeheson-Llllenthal report," p. vlii. 



