77 



Polling questions which contained references to both "bomb 

 secrets" and "international control"' invariably brought 

 fewer approvals of the control principle, the automatic reac- 

 tion being to "keep the secrets." 40 



At the time of the December 1945 conference which resulted in the 

 Moscow Declaration, Senator Arthur Vandenberg, Chairman of the 

 Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and other members of Congress 

 repeatedly sought and obtained assurances from the President that the 

 United States would not release atomic energy information prior to 

 the establishment of adequate safeguards. The protective attitude to- 

 ward the U.S. "secrets" was heightened by the revelation in early 

 1946 of evidence of espionage in Canada involving the transmission 

 of atomic energy information to the Soviet Union. These events served 

 not only to reinforce the public attitude toward nuclear secrecy sur- 

 rounding the bomb, but also to engender a growing mistrust in the 

 United States of the Soviet Union. 41 



In general, the attitude of the United States toward the secret of 

 the bomb may have had several effects on its policy and on other coun- 

 tries' conceptions of that policy. Mistrust of the Soviet Union, coupled 

 with the idea that sole possession of the atomic weapon represented a 

 "sacred trust" 42 in terms of U.S. responsibility for world security, 

 may have acted as a motive to withhold as much information as pos- 

 sible, for as long as possible, until the international control system was 

 secure. But a marked reluctance on the part of the United States to 

 part with information or facilities may have encouraged critics of 

 the U.S. proposals, especially in the Soviet Union, to conclude that 

 the United States did not intend to relinquish its monopoly and 

 eventually would exercise "atomic diplomacy." 



The notion of devising methods to protect the secret of the bomb 

 figured importantly in U.S. policy discussions on international control 

 of atomic energy. However, considerations of this nature ran counter 

 to a principle which might be deemed applicable to any field of scien- 

 tific inquiry : that secrecy cannot long delay the independent acquisi- 

 tion of scientific and technological information. This principle had 

 special force in the case of atomic energy, in light of the inherent im- 

 portance of this information to other nations, especially a great power 

 like the Soviet Union. 



A related question which entered U.S. policy deliberations involved 

 estimates of how long it would take the Soviet Union to develop its 

 own atomic weapon without access to outside information. Such esti- 

 mates would indicate how long the United States could expect to 

 enjoy its preeminence in the field of atomic energy even if its efforts 

 to maintain secrecy, before establishment of effective international 

 control, should be entirely successful. Thus, the U.S. assessment of 

 Soviet technological capabilities was a factor to be reckoned with in 

 the U.S. diplomatic approach to the international negotiations. 



"U.S. Department of State, The International Control of Atomic Energy, Policy at the 

 Crossroads, Publication 3161 (Washington, D.C. : U.S. Government Printing Office, 1948), 



4 R,P ewlett and Anderson - History of the United States Atomic Energy Commission, 

 I>. 5(11. The spv cas"8 also had an effW-r on Oip concessional deliberations oi domestic 

 control of atomic energy and on the U.S. attitude toward international information ex- 

 change, e.g., wartime agreements with the British. Ibid., p. 480. 



4 -This phrase was used by President Truman to describe the U.S. role in relation to its 

 monopoly on atomic weapons. State Department, Growth of a Policy, p 117. 



