95 



against its use for destructive purposes can be devised." 98 Moreover, 

 the statement recommended that the proposed U.N. Commission pro- 

 ceed "by separate stages, the successful completion of each one of which 

 will develop the necessary confidence of the world before the next stage 

 is undertaken." " The same phrase was incorporated in the Moscow 

 Declaration and in the resolution which established the UNAEC. At 

 the Moscow Conference, the provision that the work of the Commission 

 should proceed by stages had been strongly supported by the United 

 States; Russian agreement was obtained primarily in exchange for 

 Western agreement to Soviet insistence on the close relationship of the 

 Commission with the U.N. Security Council. 100 



The idea that the. proposed Commission should proceed by stages 

 may have made it appear to the United States that its participation 

 in the proposed organization would involve the release of information 

 on atomic weapons either for the purposes of negotiation or to set up 

 the system of international control. Thus, even before taking part in 

 the negotiations on the substantive issues of control the United States 

 felt it necessary to seek assurance that atomic weapons information 

 would be protected in the absence of international control, and this 

 concern was carried over into the negotiations themselves, as it applied 

 to the transition from U.S. to international control. 



INSISTENCE BY ACHESON COMMITTEE ON STEP-BY-STEP APPROACH 



Origins of the discussion: The idea of transitional stages in the 

 Aeheson-Lilienthal report originated in the attitude among the mem- 

 bers of Acheson's committee that the security of the United States 

 had to be protected before and during the transition to effective inter- 

 national control. Some committee members expressed concern lest in- 

 formation and facilities associated with manufacturing the atomic 

 bomb be released by the United States before a reliable system of in- 

 ternational control had been established. The Board of Consultants 

 did not set out initially to devise such stages. They viewed their basic 

 task as to conceive a "workable system of international control," and 

 tended to disregard devising the steps to achieve it. It was only at 

 the insistence of the Acheson committee that the Board resigned itself 

 to modifying its report to include a general discussion of stages. The 

 finished form of the Aeheson-Lilienthal report, however, avoided 

 going into considerable detail, on the grounds that specific schedules 

 would have to be negotiated in the UNAEC, and that decisions on the. 

 timing of the release of information and facilities by the United States 

 should be left to the highest policymakers in the Government. 



Although the political basis for the concept of stages had been es- 

 tablished in the policy approved by the President, the Board of Con- 

 sultants apparently preferred to omit explicit discussion of this sub- 

 ject, even though Conant had earlier mentioned to the Board the need 

 for transitional stages. 101 In the Board's original report to Acheson's 

 committee, the Consultants did not deal with the issue of transitional 



98 state Department, Growth of a Policy, p. 25. 

 m Ibid. 



100 Lieberman, The Scorpion and the Tarantula, p. 216. 



101 Hewlett and Anderson, History of the United States Atomic Energy Commission, 

 p. 534. 



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