144 



strations became the task of the diplomats. The AEC supported the 

 idea of building demonstration plants abroad. In 1952, AEC Com- 

 missioner T. Keith Glennan forecast an increasing demand abroad 

 for nuclear power: "This demand naturally will arise first where 

 present costs of electrical energy are high and this suggests that such 

 a program may have an important place in a future Point Four pro- 

 gram," J2 Europe was a likely location because it needed electricity and 

 costs of European electricity were higher than in the United States. 

 thus setting an easier economic goal for the designers and engineers. 

 AEC Commissioner Henry D. Smyth endorsed the idea that the 

 nuclear power stations might be built abroad with U.S. financial help 

 through Point Four funds. He too pointed out that since power pro- 

 duction in the United States was much cheaper than in other countries, 

 the economic incentive for nuclear power would be greater abroad. 



By the early 1950's nuclear power had begun to attract the interest of 

 the makers and executors of foreign policy. Still it remained of limited 

 import as the governments and diplomatic services of the United 

 States and its allies struggled to assure the survival of a free Western 

 Europe. The experience then with a massive outpouring of U.S. fi- 

 nancial and technical aid through multinational organizations was to 

 point the way for later multinational ventures in nuclear power. 



The Evolving Scene: 191^5-1953 



Eight years elapsed between the end of fighting in Europe and 

 President Eisenhower's Atoms for Peace plan of 195)1 The events and 

 trends of these years generated pressures upon the United States to 

 take new diplomatic initiatives. One initiative was the President's plan 

 to foster the peaceful use of nuclear energy throughout the world by 

 means which included construction and operation of demonstration 

 nuclear power plants in Europe. 



These 8 years saw the initial recovery of Europe, the start of 

 the cold war. the onset of economic stagnation in Europe, the mount- 

 ing of the Marshall plan and the related establishment of the Or- 

 ganisation for European Economic Co-operation (OEEC), creation 

 of the .North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the Korean 

 "War. U.S. pronouncement of the doctrine of massive retaliation, and 

 the formation of two multinational European organizations for eco- 

 nomic cooperation. 23 



I UK POSTWAR STRUGGLE 



Fighting ended in Europe on May 5, L945. The enormous devasta- 

 tion on the continent and in the British Isles made survival and 

 restoral ion of commerce and industry the imperatives of the day. Yet 

 despite this devastation, the United Nations Economic Commission 

 for Europe estimated that Western Europe had by 1946 regained its 

 prewar levels of industrial production. Unfortunately, the extremely 

 harsh winter of 1946 17 impeded this initial recovery, which came to 

 a halt altofrtherin L947. 



-Ihi.l . p. 25 



M While an examination <>r r.s Soviet relations In Europe lies outside the scop.' of this 

 paper, there were i" be interactions between these power blocs with respeel ii> nuclear 

 power, for background on the general relations, the reader may wish to consult Thomas 

 \Volfe, Soviet Power and Europe: 1915 t970 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 

 L970). 



