196 



the field of disarmament by creating a practical working model of an inspection 

 system, and a climate of international opinion in support of our objectives. This 

 we may hope, will facilitate establishment of the broader controls needed for 

 a successful disarmament agreement. 



Sterling Cole, then chairman of the Joint Committee on Atomic 

 Energy, strongly supported the safeguards function of the IAEA for 

 its implications for disarmament. In a statement to the Senate Foreign 

 Relations Committee he cited its potential for "outstanding accom- 

 plishment." He said : 148 



This will be a period of learning about all of the problems— technical, legal, 

 psychological — of international inspection and control. The Agency was suggested 

 at a time when neither the United States nor Russia were able to agree on an 

 inspection and control plan for themselves for disarmament purposes. The 

 Agency's operations can produce that technology and that confidence in inter- 

 national control which will lead to complete international control of atomic 

 energy at an appropriate time later on. Since the Soviet Union has been the 

 country principally opposed to international inspection of atomic arms, perhaps 

 it will learn that international inspection will not be as unpalatable as 

 anticipated. 



The State Department underscored the importance of international 

 safeguards. In reply to a question as to why the desired safeguards 

 could not be had equally well through bilateral agreements, Secretary 

 Dulles replied : 149 



. . . while in theory you could have the same degree of inspection under bi- 

 laterals as you have under the International Agency, ... in fact there would be 

 competition between the countries — there is already evidence of that now — as to 

 who would want to sell this material. One result would be dropping these 

 standards of inspection, so that in fact we would not be able to maintain our 

 own standards as the era of plenty arrives in this field. 



Secondly .... there is objection to continuing inspection just by one nation 

 as against an international system. 



Thirdly . . . , we do not have the manpower to do it adequately as the need 

 increases. 



Strauss foresaw that within a few years other nations would be 

 offering nuclear materials on the world market and that without the 

 International Agency the United States could not then be sure that 

 these other nations would impose equally stringent safeguards. Accord- 

 ing to Strauss, the Agency could establish standards for safeguards 

 more effectively than any system of agreements between individual 

 countries. Such standards had to be set up at the outset of the growth 

 of a world nuclear power industry. It would be too late to attempt it 

 "after the contaminants have been broadcast." 150 



AEC Commissioner Thomas Murray saw IAEA as the only means 

 of avoiding international nuclear anarchy. He said : 151 



In no field does the need for international order exist more imperatively than 

 in the field of nuclear energy. In the concept of order I include a whole set 

 of notions — regulation, control, supervision, commonly accepted standards of 

 health and safety, and above all the institution of free and orderly procedures of 

 cooperation among nations. You have heard statements about the danger of 

 our gradually drifting into a state of atomic anarchy. This is a good phrase in 

 which to describe the state in which we already find ourselves. Surely this is 

 true in the field of nuclear weapons. Each of the nations engaged in their 

 development and production is acting as a law unto itself. 



14S IMd.. p. 171. 

 uu Ibid., p. 69. 

 ' ' [bid., p. 87. 

 161 Ibid., p. 175. 



