204 



nuclear industry in its infancy, vested interests were few and still 

 fluid. 



The exciting early purpose of -Euratom was to create a European 

 nuclear technology and a European nuclear power industry, which, it 

 was hoped, would be able to compete with the nuclear industries of 

 the United Kingdom and the United States. 174 



ADVICE FOR THE DECISIONMAKERS 



The foreign ministers decided at Messina to seek the advice of the 

 technological community. In November 1956 they commissioned three 

 prominent Europeans to report on the early production of nuclear 

 power within the six member countries. The three were Louis Armand 

 of France, Franz Etzel of West Germany, and Francesco Giordani of 

 Italy. 175 Dubbed "the three wise men" in the public press, these three 

 were well versed in science, technology, administration, and diplomacy, 

 but their advice and interests focused more upon politics and economics 

 than upon science. 176 



A TARGET FOR EURATOM 



The product of "the three wise men" was a report, A Target for 

 Euratom, 171 delivered May 4, 1957, after the treaties for atomic inte- 

 gration had been signed. The substance of the proposals, however, was 

 well known beforehand, for in January 1957, the authors had ex- 

 pounded their ideas in a public conference. 



A Target for Euratom combined the factors of energy and economic 

 policy into a compelling argument for European atomic integration. 

 With the Suez crisis still fresh in mind, they observed that a future 

 stoppage of oil could be an economic calamity for Europe, and that ex- 

 cessive dependence upon an oil supply from an unstable region might 

 lead to serious political trouble throughout the world. Estimating 

 that future energy requirements of the economic community would 

 increase by 83 percent between 1955 and 1975, they advised that the 

 economic growth of the six countries was in danger of being seriously 

 hampered by lack of another source of energy. They warned that 

 without such a new source imports of fuel would rise to intolerable 

 amounts, doubling in the next decade and tripling within two decades. 

 The authors recommended that the Common Market nations install 

 15,000 megawatts of nuclear power by 1967. For perspective, at that 



"* For more detailed insight into the orlpins of Euratom, Cf. Rene Foche, Europe and 

 Technology: A Political View (Paris: The Atlantic Institute, 1970), p. 23. 



178 Louis Armand was then director general of the French State Railways and president 

 of the Industrial Equipment Commission of the French Commissariat a l'Energle Atomique 

 (CEA). By profession he was an engineer and an administrator. Franz Etzel was a senior 

 vice president of the Coal Community. A lawyer and an economist, he was also leader of the 

 Christian Democratic Party in Germany. Francesco Giordani was president of the Italian 

 National Rfs^arch Council. A professor, nuclear scientist and chemist, he was a leading 

 European authority on nuclear science. 



w Professor Warren B. Walsh of the international relations program of the Maxwell 

 School, University of Syracuse, underscored this point In his observation that : 



". . . the principal architects of Euratom were specialists In politics and economics, 

 especially tne former, rather than scientists .... The genesis of Euratom owed 

 more to the Impact of politics and public affairs than the other way around." 



Cf. Warren B. Walsh, Science and International Publio Affairs (New York : Maxwell 

 School of Syracuse University, 1967), p. 79. 



177 A Target for Euratom. Reprinted in U.S. Congress, Joint Committee on Atomic 

 Energy, Hearings, Proposed Euratom Agreements, 85th Cong., 2d Sess., 1958, pp. 38-64. 



